Dream of Ding Village is the story of a blood collection craze that led to an outbreak of HIV/AIDS and a huge loss of life in rural Hunan due to poor transfusion/collection practices and lack of regulations and national oversight. Yan’s prose is a pleasure to read: neither overly dense nor overly simplistic. Yan has admitted that he self-censored his book in order to get it published, yet it was still banned after its first run.
Recommended by AW.