The Garlic Ballads: Can you trust Mo Yan?

In our second look at Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads we examine the complicated publication history of this novel: bannings, unbannings, swapped chapters, and a dubious quotation delivered by the ghost of Stalin in Mo Yan's dreams. If the novel has changed this much, which version do we trust? If Mo Yan contradicts himself this much can we trust him, or he just the victim of his American publisher?
For this series we will be discussing Life Under Communism with Herta Muller's The Passport Aug 12-26, László Krasznahorkai's Satantango Sept 2-16, and Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads Sept 23 - Oct 7.
You can join our Reddit discussion here: / canonicalpod where you can also find show notes, credits and extended discussions for every episode.
We are also on Twitter and Facebook @CanonicalPod. Follow us to get updates on upcoming episodes!