Yu Hua: Brothers

When Baldy Li's mother marries Song Gang's father, the two boys become brothers. Although they are inseparable as children, their ambitions and personalities are very different and become more rather than less pronounced as they grow into adulthood. Song Gang is thoughtful and serious; Baldy Li, meanwhile, is obsessed by sex (even before he fully understands what the act involves) and an unquenchable desire to make something of himself -- for Baldy Li plans to become a man of the world . . . in all senses of the word. And although Baldy Li is a man who always (well, almost always) keeps his word, so too is his brother -- but even here, their differences are obvious, for while Song Gang promises to put his brother first in everything they do, Baldy Li promises himself he will capture the heart of the town beauty, Lin Hong . . . who just happens to be the love of Song Gang's life. Set against the brutality and violence of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, Brothers is a novel about boys becoming men, about family feuds and the ties that bind -- that bind all of us, even those who refuse to be bound by mere convention or custom because they are bound for far greater glories . . .