To Live, a 1993 realist novel by renowned Chinese author Yu Hua, traces the struggles of protagonist Fugui and his family. Instead of using traditional chapters, the novel is broken into italicized and non-italicized sections based on whether Fugui or his unnamed interlocutor is narrating. Spanning over four decades of modern Chinese history, including the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists (1945-49), the founding of the People’s Republic (1949), the Land Reform era (1949-52), the Great Leap Forward (1958-62), and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Fugui’s story focuses on the minutiae of life amid an expansive historical backdrop. In doing so, it explores themes of Perseverance in the Face of Hardship and Political Systems and Class Divides.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain references to suicide, domestic abuse, child abuse, child death, and wartime violence.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with an unnamed narrator recounting the days of his youth when he traveled the countryside working as a collector of folk songs. Although little is known about the narrator, it’s clear that he is nostalgic about this time in his life, particularly because this is when he met an old man named Fugui, who told him his life story.

In the days of his youth, Fugui is rich and spoiled. While his pregnant wife and young daughter are at their countryside home, Fugui is in town spending time with sex workers and gambling. This goes on until Fugui eventually loses his family’s money. As a result, his family loses the home and farmland that have been in the family for generations. Fugui goes from living in a brick house and being the landowner to living in a shack and being a farmhand.

While in town to get medicine for his dying mother, Fugui is captured by the National Army and forced to fight for them. After being gone for several years, he returns to his family a new man. The rest of the novel is about the hardships that Fugui and his wife, son, and daughter endure while living in poverty. The hardships include starvation, illness, and class division, and each difficulty reflects China’s evolving historical landscape and its effects on the common people.

Over the course of Fugui’s life, he experiences the deaths of his father, mother, son, daughter, wife, and only grandson. By the time the narrator meets Fugui, he has outlived everyone he has ever loved, yet he still appreciates life. His ability to persevere despite witnessing so many tragedies and setbacks demonstrates China’s own perseverance.