Life is nothing but a circus. Such is the message of Yan Lianke's absurdist "Lenin's Kisses," a tale of political lunacy and greed set in modern-day China. In this sprawling novel, an ambitious county official forms a traveling freak-show of the disabled. His aim is to raise enough money to buy Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse from Russia to display in China.

attached to: Yan Lianke