Novel by Yan Lianke.

Yan Lianke's novel is a satire or criticism of Chinese academia. It's main character, Yang Ke, is an associate professor at 'Qingyan University' (a thinly-disguised fictionalization of China's two most prestigious universities, Qinghua University and Peking University), and a researcher into the Book of Odes (诗经), a collection of classical Chinese poetry. He meets with a variety of fates, including losing his wife to the university president, having his research stolen, and being kicked out of his position on trumped-up grounds. It was inspired by Yan Lianke's observations of the habits and mores of China's professors, and has not made him very popular with that group.