Love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it

Published in two parts, in 2005 and 2006, Brothers (Xiongdi) spans four decades of China in transition in over half-a-million Chinese characters. Critical opinion on this book, both within China and abroad, is sharply divided.

Julia Lovell, translator of Lu Xun's works, ticks the book off for its "misogyny" and "cloacal voyeurism" in her review in The Guardian.

The New York Times calls it "a strange and wonderful thing: one of the first attempts by a Chinese novelist to create a popular epic for the generation that grew up in the 'cultural revolution', came of age in the 1980s and emerged as the winners - and losers - in China's market economy".