Die wahre Geschichte des Ah Q

written on November 7, 2026, read November 2026

In my piece on the Three-Body trilogy, I mentioned that my reading map has some sizeable blank spots when it comes to Asia and Africa. So I simply googled what you absolutely have to have read in Chinese literature. One name and one title kept coming up: Lu Xun and “The True Story of Ah Q”. It isn’t a long story – that was something I had specifically looked for. I still have quite a few books in the inbox on my shelf, and another two-and-a-half-kilo doorstopper would have set me back considerably.

I bought the book second-hand. A series of pencil markings reveals that someone used it as study material.¹ The edge of the pages is stamped “Mängelexemplar” – the German mark for remaindered or slightly damaged stock. And yet, even after 40 years, it is a remarkably flawless copy. Someone must have rescued it from a bargain bin. Apparently, even works considered especially important in their own country aren’t safe from that fate here in Germany.

I don’t want to write much about the content. The book is considered one of the most important works of modern Chinese literature (says Wikipedia), and it has probably been analysed up and down by countless people, right down to the smallest sentence fragment. There’s no need for me to add my own clumsy interpretation. Just this much: Lu Xun criticises the weaknesses of Chinese society at the time through a day labourer who, by way of absurd self-deception, reinterprets every real defeat as a victory. In the end, he is executed for something he didn’t do, without even the faintest idea why.

One thing did strike me as very interesting, though: “The True Story of Ah Q” is set during the Xinhai Revolution², while the Three-Body trilogy begins in the Cultural Revolution. I pick up two books by two different authors, and in both, a revolution plays a central role. But perhaps that’s less of a coincidence than it seems: as far as I understand it, the 20th century in China was one upheaval after another. Books set over a longer stretch of that period can hardly avoid running into a revolution.

I never really warmed to the book. Throughout, it gave me the impression of speaking with a second voice: “Actually, I want to tell you something completely different …” Yes, a great deal of literature has that second voice, satire all the more so. But here it seems very loud to me. Almost dominant.

Of course, I know that’s intentional. At the end of my edition there’s also a commentary that puts the story in context a little. And after finishing it, I read a few more texts about the book that explained more – along the lines of “What is all this supposed to tell me?” They broadened my own interpretation considerably, probably also because my knowledge of China in that era is pretty rudimentary.

It’s an allegory, a satire. That makes the second voice the actual text, not what you read on the surface. But I’m a big fan of literature that quietly plants a thought which only sprouts much later – so that one morning you’re sitting at breakfast, it suddenly shoots through your head, and you say with a smile: “Got it!” Just as these days I prefer music that works without having to turn the volume up to ear-damaging levels.³ This story works in a completely different way. Then again – maybe that breakfast moment will still come for this book.

PS: My toe-deep dive into Chinese literature isn’t over yet, though: also waiting in the inbox on my bookshelf is “The Wandering Earth” by Liu Cixin. It’s a collection of stories that I’d like to read in one go. Which makes it a bit of a doorstopper again after all. It’ll have to wait.