Pow! (Chinese: 四十一炮; pinyin: sìshíyī pào) is a 2003 novel by the Chinese author and Nobel laureate Mo Yan. The novel's protagonist is Luo Xiaotong, a village boy with a passion for story-telling. It is set in a temple, where Luo recounts the story of his life to an old monk.[1] He describes the difficult circumstances of his childhood in the "Slaughterhouse Village," a fictional town in which the population is obsessed with the consumption of meat and where corruption is rife.[2]

POW!
First edition (Chinese)
AuthorMo Yan
Original title四十一炮
TranslatorHoward Goldblatt
LanguageChinese
GenreNovel
Publisher(Eng. trans.) Seagull Books
Publication date
2003
Publication placeChina
Published in English
15 December 2012
Media typePrint (Hardback
Pages386 pp (Eng. trans. edition)
ISBN0857420763 (Eng. trans. edition)
Preceded byFrog 

The novel has been interpreted as an allegorical commentary on the state of contemporary Chinese society, though Mo himself maintains that he is merely a storyteller, uninterested in ideology.[3]

References

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  1. ^ "Mo Yan's New Novel: A Peter Pan tale", The Economist, 22 December 2012.
  2. ^ Hector Tobar, "Mo Yan's 'Pow!' packs a punch, however veiled", Los Angeles Times, 14 December 2012.
  3. ^ "Mo on Mo", The Economist, 3 January 2013.