Red Sorghum is a landmark novel by Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan, published in 1986. Set in Northeast Gaomi Township, Shandong Province, the story unfolds across the turbulent decades from the 1920s to the 1940s. Narrated by an unnamed grandson, it chronicles the passionate and violent lives of his grandmother, forced into an arranged marriage with a leprous wine distillery owner, and his grandfather, a bandit who becomes a folk hero. Amid vast sorghum fields, the couple leads villagers in fierce resistance against Japanese invaders. Blending brutal realism with vivid mystical imagery, the novel celebrates raw vitality, wild love, and the unyielding spirit of the Chinese peasantry.
