The Vagrants
Author: Yiyun Li
Publisher: Random House
Price: $28 (Hardcover)
In The Vagrants, Gu Shan rocks her native Chinese town Muddy Waters. The young woman has protested against Communism in the country during the late 1970s, a time when defection equalled death. As she appears centered in a stadium awaiting execution, her vocal chords cut and kidneys removed, the onlookers who had a connection to her recall their own impressions of young Shan. Through her parents and others, a picture of Shan and the reflection of individual corruption on a society are conceived.
