Serve the People! - Yan Lianke, Vintage Publishing

A brilliantly comic satire about a love affair from the visionary, world-class storyteller. Set in 1967, at the peak of the Mao cult, this is the tale of a forbidden love affair between Liu Lian - the bored wife of a military commander - and a young soldier, Wu Dawang. When Liu Lian establishes a rule that Wu Dawang must attend to her needs whenever the household''s wooden &quot,Serve the People!&quot, sign is removed from its usual place, he vows to obey.What follows is both an enthralling love story and a deliciously comic satire on the political and sexual taboos of Mao''s regime. &quot,Drips with the kind of satire that can only come from deep within the machinery of Chinese communism&quot, Financial Times