The latest addition to my website is Mo Yan‘s 檀香刑 (Sandalwood Death). This is another fine tale from Mo Yan, about the people of Mo Yan’s home town, Northern Gaomi Township, during the Boxer Rebellion, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Instead of just being oppressed by their Chinese overlords, there is a new peril. The Germans are building a railway to Gaomi and they are behaving very badly. When the people revolt, after German high-handedness and when the leader of an opera troupe finds a group of Germans sexually assaulting his wife, the authorities take the side of the Germans and arrest the leader. His daughter, who is having an affair with the local bigwig does what she can to help her father. She feels she can count on the aid of her father-in-law, whom she had never met but who has suddenly turned up, as he was the official executioner of the Emperor. It is a fine story but particularly gruesome as we get detailed descriptions of the executioner’s work.