Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out is a 2006 novel by Chinese writer Mo Yan, first published in Chinese and translated into English by Howard Goldblatt. The narrative spans the history of China from 1950 to 2000 through the eyes of a man reincarnated as various animals: a donkey, an ox, a pig, a dog, a monkey, and finally a human child. Mo Yan is the pen name of Guan Moye; his pseudonym means “don’t speak” in Chinese because as a child and young man his parents warned him it was dangerous to express his views. Mo Yan’s work is often banned and frequently pirated. His notable works include Red Sorghum and The Republic of Wine.

The story begins in 1950. Ximen Nao, an apparently generous landowner in Gaomi County, Shandong Province, China, is executed so the land he owns can be redistributed as part of Mao Zedong’s Land Reform movement of 1948. Once dead, Ximen finds himself in the underworld. Lord Yama, god of the underworld, tells him he has committed many sins, and tells him to admit he is guilty. Ximen refuses. Lord Yama tortures him so he will admit his guilt. Finally, Ximen asks for a chance to be reborn so he can have a chance to return to his villagers and ask them face-to-face what he is supposed to be guilty of. Lord Yama agrees, and Ximen is reborn—as a donkey. He is once again in his village, surrounded by the people he knew as a man, but he cannot speak to them.

Ximen Donkey retains his memories and consciousness, but like a donkey, he is stubborn. He is owned by Lan Lian, his adopted son in his previous life. He learns what has happened to the people he knew: his concubine, Yingchun, is now married to Lan Lian, and together they are raising Ximen’s son, Jinlong. They have a son of their own as well, Lan Jiefang, born on the same day as Ximen Donkey. Ximen’s other concubine, Qiuxiang, is married to Huang Tong, chairman of the village Revolutionary Committee.



As a donkey, Ximen falls in love with a fellow female donkey, even warding off a wolf in an attempt to save her life. Ximen Donkey is killed, and soon finds himself reborn as Ximen Ox.

Ximen Ox, also owned by Lan Lian, is soon beloved by the village for his strength. By now, communist reforms mean that most goods now belong to the village as a whole. Only Lan Lian continues to own his own parcel of land and to farm it himself. But village officials, including Jinlong, pressure Lan Lian to give up Ximen Ox and make him public property for the good of the village.

Lan Liang loves his ox, but finally concedes. Ximen Ox, however, still has the mind of a man, so he continues to resist. He tries to attack the soldiers who take him. In return, he is tortured by a group of them, including Jinlong, his own son. Jinlong appears to get a sadistic pleasure from hurting and torturing the ox. Ximen Ox is so pained by this that he does not move or try to fight back. Tears stream from his eyes. Where other soldiers feel ashamed and stop beating the ox, Jinlong continues. Ximen Ox dies.



Ximen reappears in the underworld, and Lord Yama tells him he will be reborn as a human in an idyllic, peaceful part of the world as compensation for the suffering he has endured. However, he is unreliable—Ximen is reborn as a pig belonging to Jinlong instead. But Ximen Pig is different from Ximen Ox and Ximen Donkey. He is further from his human self, more concerned with his life as an animal than his past as a human and any perceived injustices towards himself and his family. When a plague strikes, Ximen Pig escapes the village to avoid death. He finds a new place to live in the mountains and becomes the leader of a group of wild pigs. His power grows, but he eventually steps down, which saves him from being killed in an attempted war between pigs and humans, which ends in the pigs being slaughtered. Instead, Ximen Pig dies saving village children from drowning.

Next, Ximen is reincarnated as a dog belonging to Lan Jiefang’s son. Lan Jiefang abandons his family when he suddenly falls in love with a woman twenty years younger, even though it means giving up the powerful position he has obtained. Ximen Dog does not approve of the suffering Jiefang carelessly causes his son and wife. The affair ends when Jiefang’s lover dies. The opportunistic Jinlong also dies, killed by Huang Tong, a fanatical Maoist. Jinlong’s death brings Jiefang closer to Jinlong’s widow, who was Jiefang’s first love. Ximen Dog dies at Lan Lian’s home. When he returns to the underworld, Lord Yama tells him why he still has not been reincarnated as a human: he has too much hatred in his heart. Yama tells Ximen he still carries hatred with him that must be purged before he is born again as a human.

Ximen is born again as a monkey. This time his life is very brief, and he seems even less connected to his human self, now several lives in the past. He lives for two years as Ximen Monkey. Meanwhile, Jiefang’s son Kaifeng falls in love with Pang Fenghuang. He does not realize the girl is his own cousin, Jinlong’s daughter. Pang Fenghuang is thoughtless and cruel, but Kaifeng is blind to it all. When Kaifeng’s family reveals that Pang Fenghuang is his cousin, he kills himself out of shame. Ximen Monkey dies, and finally is reborn as a human child, Lan Quiansui, the son of Kaifeng and Peng Fenghuang.



This child is nicknamed “Big-Head.” He continues to retain memories of his previous incarnations, and with the combined wisdom of those years, begins to tell his story to Jiefang.

Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out earned favorable reviews for its exploration of life under Communist rule and has been called “hallucinatory realism.” It often breaks the fourth wall; Mo Yan himself appears as a villager mocked for his eccentricity. In 2009, the novel received the first-ever Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. In 2012, Mo Yan received the Nobel Prize of literature for his body of work, though the decision was considered controversial for Mo’s apparent reluctance to speak out against the frequent censorship or punishment of other Chinese writers by the Chinese government.