In this novel, Yu Hua (b. 1960), one of the brightest modern Chinese prose writers, through the story of the relationship between two half-brothers living in the small town of Liuzhen near Shanghai, shows the country’s path from the recent past with the horrors of the “cultural revolution” to a difficult present full of contradictions. "Brothers" is a satirical account of modern Chinese society, in which the new values are the unbridled desire for status, money and sex. Liuzhen is a scaled-down model of all of China with characteristic social types and their transformation (fighters on the ideological front become PR specialists, Komsomol women become brothel owners, marginalized people become oligarchs). Each of the two brothers is a hero of his time, symbolizing the losers and winners in the new conditions.