Upheaval

Upheaval is a realist novel by the Guangxi writer Qin Zicheng, set in the countryside of northern Guangxi and centered on the fates of two generations of farmers, Gouzai and Fugui. Gouzai is a farmer who gained land and freedom in the revolution, and his marriage to Widow Xu, a woman of rich-peasant background, complicates his family's class status; Fugui is Xu's son, raised under the shadow of class labels and social discrimination, growing up self-doubting yet proud, withdrawn yet stubborn. The novel places personal marriages, family upheavals, and the hardships of schooling and employment within half a century of rural ownership change after the founding of New China: land reform, mutual-aid teams, elementary and advanced cooperatives, people's communes, and then, after reform and opening up, the contract responsibility system, land allocation to households, the market economy, and agricultural modernization. Every turn of the era leaves its mark on the livelihoods and choices of ordinary people; they endure hardships and encounter opportunities, and ultimately keep the plain, kind, hardworking character of farmers, growing prosperous lawfully on their native soil. The work makes extensive use of Guilin rural dialect, slang, and two-part allegorical sayings, giving it a lively, humorous language and strong local color, reflecting the great turning points of the nation and society through the small affairs of ordinary people.