Frog
A Novel
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Frog
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Narrated by:
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Graeme Malcolm
About this listen
The author of Red Sorghum and China's most revered and controversial novelist returns with his first major publication since winning the Nobel Prize.
In 2012, the Nobel committee confirmed Mo Yan's position as one of the greatest and most important writers of our time. In his much-anticipated new novel, Mo Yan chronicles the sweeping history of modern China through the lens of the nation's controversial one-child policy.
Frog opens with a playwright nicknamed Tadpole who plans to write about his aunt. In her youth, Gugu - the beautiful daughter of a famous doctor and staunch Communist - is revered for her skill as a midwife. But when her lover defects, Gugu's own loyalty to the Party is questioned. She decides to prove her allegiance by strictly enforcing the one-child policy, keeping tabs on the number of children in the village, and performing abortions on women as many as eight months pregnant.
In sharply personal prose, Mo Yan depicts a world of desperate families, illegal surrogates, forced abortions, and the guilt of those who must enforce the policy. At once illuminating and devastating, it shines a light into the heart of communist China.
©2014 Mo Yan (P)2014 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 96
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Story4 out of 5 stars 97
Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that depict events of staggering horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty, as the Chinese battle both Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent 1930s. A legend in China, where it won major literary awards and inspired an Oscar-nominated film directed by Zhang Yimou, Red Sorghum is a book in which fable and history collide to produce fiction that is entirely new—and unforgettable.
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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This searing novel, originally banned in China but later named one of that nation's most influential books, portrays one man's transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant. After squandering his family's fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution.
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By: Yu Hua, and others
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
- By: Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 6,453
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,653
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 5,656
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
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- By Melinda on 02-05-14
By: Gabriel García Márquez, and others
-
Gone with the Wind
- By: Margaret Mitchell
- Narrated by: Linda Stephens
- Length: 49 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 15,352
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 13,200
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Story5 out of 5 stars 13,205
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-
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- By Noel on 04-27-10
-
The House of the Spirits
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- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,803
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,469
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,474
The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narrators spoil it
- By Cookie on 09-27-16
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Remains of the Day
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,830
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,431
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,418
This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of a butler named Stevens. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful and ever relevant
- By bbots on 07-04-20
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
Critic reviews
"A rich and troubling epic - and a very human story...hauntingly inventive." (The New York Times)
"Mo Yan brings back the hallucinatory realism for which he’s known...[Frog is] another display of Mo Yan’s attractively daring approach to fiction. The Nobel committee chose wisely." (The Washington Post)
"Heavily laced with ardent social criticism, mystical symbolism, and historical realism, Mo Yan’s potent exploration of China’s most personal and intrusive social control programs probes the horrors and pain such policies inflict." (Booklist)
What listeners say about Frog
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Patriot
- 05-03-15
Amazing story of reproduction.
This is an amazing story of reproduction in the age of the One Child Policy. There were many twists and turns in following the life of Gugu.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Sau
- 09-18-18
Just so so
Just so so... tried to reflect what has been happening in China but it is so superficial and not much depth in the story ...
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- David
- 02-19-17
Loved the Novel, not a fan of the play at end
Which character – as performed by Graeme Malcolm – was your favorite?
I have to give Graeme credit for doing an excellent job with Gugu, I got a really strong sense of her attitude and outlook.
Who was the most memorable character of Frog and why?
Gugu, while not the main character was the focus and and the center of the story. I remember her journey the most.
Any additional comments?
The novel itself I enjoyed, however having the narrator read the play, including stage directions at the end was an unpleasant addition to the core of the story on a personal level.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Margaret
- 04-10-25
A Johnathan Swift dive into Chinese village life
This finely drawn portrait of village life before, during and after the Cultural Revolution in China hooked me. Mo Yan's Northeast Township District bursts with interesting characters, most of whom center around what it means to bring children into the world. The satire sometimes had a Johnathan Swift quality. The protagonist's aunt, Gugu, is a prominent obstetrician, saving babies and mothers with scientific knowledge and modern approaches. Gugu also becomes a figure to dread during the peak of the One Child policy, as part of her role is to abort children, that exceed the policy, often going to great lengths that put mothers' lives in peril. Mo Yan gives the reader vivid pictures of subsistence living during the Cultural Revolution, the claustrophobia of village life where everyone knows your business, and how things change (and don't change) when China becomes a modern manufacturing powerhouse. Reading the book immersed me in the bureaucratic details of public humiliation under Mao, took me on a tour of a bullfrog farm, and invited me to local celebrations of new life. Besides being a fascinating read, Frog reminds us what can go wrong when women don't have agency over their bodies or their reproduction from many angles that may not be considered in the West.
The narrator did a great job. My only beef was that his posh BBC accent dragged me out of the context of a poor, Chinese village, but this is probably unavoidable in translation.
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