From the back cover:

Mo Yan's epic new novel opens in hell on January 1, 1950, nearly two years after Mao Zedong's Land Reform Movement overturned the traditional order of rural China. For those two years, Lord Yama, king of the underworld, has submitted Ximen Nao, a landowner knwon for his uncommon kindness to all who worked his land, to every possible torture to make him admit the charges that led to his execution at the hands of newly empowered peasants. But even after being fried alive - the ultimate torture in hell - Ximen Nao continues to proclaim his innocence.
Finally, in disgust, Lord Yama relents and allows him to return to earth, to his former landholding in impoverished Shandong. But when he arrives there, he finds to his dismay that he has been reborn not as a man but as a donkey and it is through this animal's eyes that he witnesses that fates of his former family, friends, rivals, and enemies. Subsequent reincarnations find him as an ox, a pig, a dog, a monkey, and finally a large-headed boy with an uncanny memory and a great gift for language. Through the earthy and hugely entertaining perspective of each of these characters - as well as of Mo Yan himself, who frequently interrups to comment on the events - this brilliant novel narrates the past fifty years of China's tumultuous history.

Through the lifes of Ximen Nao, who always returns to the very same area, the revolutionary history of China is well told with all the critical notes. The perspective of the animals add a lot to the understanding.

Great read!! This author who won the 2012 Literature Nobel Price has been a real discovery to me.

Off as a Nobel Price RABCK!

Looks lovely. Thank you for all these books.