Yan Lianke was born in Song County, Henan Province, China. Though he lives in Beijing, he has said that his heart remains in Henan, and he has based numerous works on life in Henan, including Dream of Ding Village. He entered the army in 1978. He graduated from Henan University in 1985 with a degree in politics and education. In 1991, he graduated from the People's Liberation Army Art Institute with a degree in Literature.

To Serve the People

This phrase was coined by Mao Zedong in 1944 when he wrote an article:"To Serve The People", to commemorate the death of a red army soldier Zhang Si-De (???). In that article Mao said:" To die for the benefit of the people, is more important than Tai mountain; working for the fascists and dying for those who oppress and exploit the people, that death would be lighter than a feather. Comrade Zhang Si-De died for the benefit of the people, so his death is heavier than Tai mountain."During the Cultural Revolution, this article was required reading for millions of Chinese; it was also one of the Three Old Articles(???). "To serve the people" became one of the most popular slogans of all times, even being used today. However, there was evidence suggested by author Jung Chang's book The Unknown Story, indicating that Comrade Zhang Si-De was in fact killed while processing raw opium when the kiln collapsed on him.Yan Lianke used Mao's phrase "To Serve the People" for the name of his novel, which contains vivid and colorful descriptions of sex scenes, resulting in extensive controversy when it was featured in 2005 in a magazine "Flower City". The Chinese government ordered the publisher to stop the release of 30,000 copies of the magazine, which in turn created huge demand for the novel.

The storyline is similar to D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover: the younger wife (32 yrs) of an old and impotent army general (52 yrs), begins to seduce a soldier (28 yrs), assigned to do the domestic chores for the general. During sex, they have discovered that by smashing items with Mao Zedong's image or his writings such as the slogan "To Serve the People", they can achieve incredible climaxes. Thereafter, they collect Mao's statues or busts and keep them nearby, to be smashed during sex. The story's background, the Cultural Revolution, means the main characters are fully aware of the consequences of smashing Mao's statues: death by firing squad.

The novel was banned by the Chinese government at least partially because of its depiction of items related to Mao Zedong and political issues. It has been translated into French, German, and English.

Dream of Ding Village

Another award winning novel by Yan Lianke, Dream of Ding Village was about an extremely sad and heavy subject:AIDS sufferers with almost no outside help. In 2005, it was chosen for The Best Ten Books Award by Yazhou Zhoukan ????, a popular weekly magazine published in Hong Kong.

Dream of Ding Village ??? was rightly compared with the book by Albert Camus, the winner of Nobel prize for Literature in 1957, The Plague (La Peste) 1947. It is sometimes called the Chinese version of The Plague.

Dream of Ding Village was published in Hong Kong at 2006, and was again banned by the Chinese government. The reasons put forward was its use of "dark descriptions, to exaggerate the harm and fear of AIDS".To get first hand knowledge about the subject, Yan Lianke started visiting AIDS sufferers, eventually visiting them seven times, and even lived with villagers for periods of time.