There are several reasons for taking a special interest in Hao Ran's Yan Yang Tian (Bright Skies), a novel about the Chinese countryside of which Part One was brought out by the author's Publishing House, Peking, in late 1964 and Part Two by the People's Literature Publishing House in March 1966. The third and final part has yet to be issued. It is the first published novel by Hao Ran, a writer born in 1932 and chiefly known for his short stories. It shows that gloom about the state of contemporary Chinese writing is not always justifiable and, perhaps more significantly, gives a reasonably full and frank account of some critical days in the history of a Chinese village. In providing a very detailed record of the behaviour of a number of peasants in the collectivization movement, it does much to supplement the official reports in the Chinese press and the interpretations of outside observers. Not the least of the book's achievements is the creation in the village boss, Ma Zhiyue, of one of the most significant villains in modern Chinese fiction.