"A Mistake by the River" Author: Yu Hua Publisher: Times Literature and Art Publishing House

Introduction · · · · · ·
"A Mistake by the River" collects four of Yu Hua's most representative novellas.

This book describes death, blood and violence in a calm tone, and on this basis reveals the cruelty of human nature and the absurdity of existence.

A horrific murder case occurred in a small town surrounded by rivers. Policeman Ma Zhe was ordered to investigate. Unexpectedly, the case got into trouble and the whole town was shrouded in an atmosphere of panic...

——《A Mistake by the River》

Liu Sheng, who was born in poverty, went to Beijing to take the imperial examination during the prosperous period. He met Miss Hui in the attic of a mansion and agreed to meet again after the examination. A few months later, Liu Sheng, who failed the exam, returned to the old place and found that the attic no longer existed...

——Classical Love

Two men watched a murder in a cafe. The police took their guns away. When they returned their guns a few days later, they mistakenly exchanged their guns. The two men therefore corresponded with each other and deduced the cause of the murder in the cafe in the letters, but unexpectedly it led to another murder...

——"Accident"

During the Cultural Revolution, a history teacher in a small town in China disappeared without a trace after being taken by the Red Guards to write a confession, leaving his young wife and infant daughter waiting helplessly at home. A few years later, his wife remarried. Many years later, in the early spring, a madman came to this town that had begun to calm down and even a little comfortable...

——"1986"