The Seventh Day

The Seventh Day is a 2013 novel by Yu Hua. It was published in China by New Star Press in June 2013. An English translation by Allan Hepburn Barr was published by Pantheon Books in January 2015. Kirkus Reviews stated that Yu Hua "is certainly commenting, often acerbically, on how life and death are valued in contemporary China". Background An absurdist fiction novel, The Seventh Day finds Yu Hua comparing the real world to the world of death, and narrating the experiences of the main character, Yang Fei, in the seven days following his death. In The Theory of Yu Hua, Wang points out that The Seventh Day compares the world of life and death. The Seventh Day breaks through the world of life and death, and describes the two completely different worlds. It is believed that some of the characters' stories (Yang Fei and Yang Jinbiao, Li Yuezhen, Mouse Girl) are based on true stories that were reported in China such as forced relocation, the hospital which treated dead infants as clinical waste, and selling a kidney to buy electronic devices. In the novel, Li Yuezhen exposed that the hospital treated 27 dead infants' remains as clinical waste which was dumped into a nearby river. This is similar to an event that occurred in the Shandong Province, where 21 dead infants' remains was found in the Guangfu river in 2010. In the novel, Wu Chao sells his kidney for money to buy Mouse Girl a new cellphone. This was also similar to news reported in 2012, in Hangzhou, a group of illegal kidney-sellers were exposed by an internet blogger, who went undercover in the group as a kidney seller for fifteen days and later, on May 28, 2012, called the police. During the fifteen days undercover in the house, he recorded his conversations with the kidney-sellers and asked them why were they selling their kidneys. One of them said that he sold his kidney so that he could afford to purchase a new cellphone for his girlfriend, and be able to support his family. In a part of the novel, a man disguised as a woman is caught working as a prostitute. This is similar to an incident reported in the autonomous Guangxi region in 2010, where local police in Liuzhou arrested three people who were engaged in prostitution. The prostitutes were discovered to actually be middle-aged men dressed as women.