Red Leaves

by Mao Dun

Set in a village in the south of the Yangtze River at the eve of the May 4th Movement, this book describes the infighting and jostling of new capitalists and landlords against each other and their sharp contradiction with farmers. Between the lines are the emotional entanglements of several young men and women and the book widely reflects the social life at that time.

282 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2017

About the author

Mao Dun (4 July 1896 – 27 March 1981) was the pen name of Shen Dehong (Shen Yanbing), a 20th-century Chinese novelist, cultural critic, and the Minister of Culture of People's Republic of China (1949–65). He is one of the most celebrated left-wing realist novelists of modern China. His most famous works are Ziye, a novel depicting life in cosmopolitan Shanghai, and Spring Silkworms. He also wrote many short stories.

He adopted "Mao Dun" (Chinese: 矛盾), meaning "contradiction", as his pen name to express the tension in the conflicting revolutionary ideology in China in the unstable 1920s. His friend Ye Shengtao changed the first character from 矛 to 茅, which literally means "thatch".

(from Wikipedia)