The Five Dragon River tells the story of the northwestern countryside of Gaomi from the 1940s to the early 1980s, through war, land reform, cooperatives, people’s communes, and the introduction of the household responsibility system.
Yilin was born into a village head’s family, but had no luck to match his good fortune. At five, he was uprooted and taken to Qingdao with his parents. His mother died when he was six, and his father left when he was eight. At thirteen, he followed the elder sister who had been his sole companion in life to Xi’an, where she married far away. At nineteen, he returned to his hometown and married into his uncle’s family.
Through Yilin’s eyes, the novel portrays and examines nearly half a century of rural life, local customs, and the profound effects of national policies in the northwestern countryside of Gaomi and the Guanzhong region.
