War

If you're curious about a humorous, yet dark, take on the old world and its eccentricities, "Thrown into Nature" will amuse you with its sharp wit. It deftly tackles the serious implications of ignorance and quackery with laugh-out-loud adventures in 16th-century Europe, all through the eyes of an unforgettable, bumbling assistant. This is historical fiction with a zesty twist.

The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble life
unchanged for generations. The Communist government has encouraged them to
plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as simple as they believed.
Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials maltreat even
those who have traveled for days to sell their harvest. A surplus on the
garlic market ensues, and the farmers must watch in horror as their crops
wither and rot in the fields. Families are destroyed by the random
imprisonment of young and old for supposed crimes against the state. The
prisoners languish in horrifying conditions in their cells, with only their
strength of character and thoughts of their loved ones to save them from
madness. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the law
into their own hands, and a riot of apocalyptic proportions follows with
savage and unforgettable consequences. The Garlic Ballads is a powerful
vision of life under the heel of an inflexible and uncaring government. It
is also a delicate story of love between man and woman, father and child,
friend and friend—and the struggle to maintain that love despite
overwhelming obstacles.

Authors: Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt
Publisher: Arcade
Publication Date: 2012