Surrounding the family are a full cast of characters. The novel centres on three generations of a family: the grandfather and patriarch, a revered elder and self-appointed professor of the village school, who was the first to convince his village people to abandon farming and to sell blood for a living the elder son, a "bloodhead"-turned-government official/businessman, who feels no remorse toward the dying and the dead the younger son, who helped his brother's business, yet unwisely sold blood and so was infected and the bloodhead's young son, poisoned by vengeful villagers. Tens of thousands of peasants were infected sometimes an entire village was wiped out.ĭream of Ding Village, a novel by Yan Lianke, one of the most prolific and bravest authors to come from China (periodically banned by the government), brings us a disturbing chronicle of one village's deterioration caused by "the spreading fever" (as Aids was called by the local peasants). Yet in less than five years, an Aids epidemic broke out in Henan province (and in many other provinces), a result of a blood-selling enterprise established by government officials and business people, where the practice of reusing needles was common. It was 1992, and more than half of my classmates believed that a disease associated with irresponsible or corrupted lifestyles would not claim China. T he first paper for my college English course, assigned by an American lawyer teaching in Beijing, was on whether China would see an Aids epidemic in the near future.
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