[Satire] Why novelist Yan Lianke chooses anxiety over sleep

Why novelist Yan Lianke chooses anxiety over sleep

For Yan Lianke — the Chinese novelist whose searing satires of modern China have been both banned at home and celebrated abroad — being a writer is to live under a constant weight of unease. “It is anxiety that makes you swallow sleeping pills night after night. It’s a torment,” he said at a press conference in Seoul Thursday, on the eve of his scheduled appearance at this year’s Seoul International Writers’ Festival (SIWF). “I wouldn’t recommen…