Yang Fei was born on a moving train, lost by his mother, adopted by a young switchman and raised with simplicity and love - utterly unprepared for the changes that await him and his country. At 41, he meets an unceremonious death, and lacking the money for a burial plot, must roam the afterworld aimlessly. There, over the course of seven days, he encounters the souls of people he's lost, and as he retraces the path of his life, we meet an extraordinary cast of characters. This searing novel affirms Yu Hua's place as the standard-bearer of Chinese fiction.
