Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out is a novel written by Mo Yan and Howard Goldblatt (July 1, 2012).

The 550,000-word novel only took Mo 43 days to compete. It uses the nostalgic chapter form to develop stories based on the reincarnation of protagonist Ximen Nao from 1950-2000. Despite being a kind and generous landowner, Nao is deprived of land and sentenced to death in Land Reform Movement of 1948. He goes to hell, where Lord Yama, king of the underworld, allows him to be reborn first as a donkey, then as an ox, pig, dog and monkey — and, finally, the big-headed boy Lan Qiansui.

Through imaginative and entertaining narratives, a picture of Chinese farmers' lives after the founding of People's Republic of China emerges.

Jonathan Spence from Yale University calls it "a wildly visionary and creative novel, constantly mocking and rearranging itself and jolting the reader with its own internal commentary."