Stories by one of the "best contemporary Chinese writers" (Independent), a gifted observer and talented satirist — Yan Lianke. The book "Days, Months, Years" includes his two most famous novellas. The novella providing the collection's title, "Days, Months, Years" (2002), is essentially a parable. A touching and profound parable about an old man and a blind dog left in a mountain village abandoned by its other inhabitants due to a severe drought. The novella "The Heavenly Song of Balou Ridge" (2001) is a poignant story about a widow raising four mentally and physically disabled children who discovers the existence of a cure. The mother will stop at nothing to provide a normal life for her children.