Trees Without Wind

First published in China in 1996 and only recently made available in English, Li Rui's Trees Without Wind shares a striking similarity with another significant Chinese novel published in English this year: Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke, who was nominated for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize. Both Li and Yan's novels are set in isolated rural Chinese villages populated (almost) exclusively by the disabled, and both employ this conceit as a means of exploring the twin defining moments of recent Chinese history: the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.