This unique work of investigative literary journalism is translated into English for the first time. The Chinese prize-winning original sold more than 250,000 copies before it was banned and went on to sell close to ten million copies illegally in China. Subsequently, the authors have been harassed in the courts, forced to terminate their employment, and have had their home stoned by a mob - all because they dared to paint a true portrait of the life of China's peasants." "Chinese journalists Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao returned to Chen's home province of Anhui, one of China's poorest, to undertake a three-year study of how the peasants fared there, asking the question: Have the peasants, in whose name the revolution in China was undertaken, been betrayed by Mao and his successors? The result is a narrative of life among the 900 million, and a portrait of the petty dictators who dominate China's villages and counties." "Told through a series of individual dramatic narratives, Will the Boat Sink the Water? gives voice to the unheard masses and looks beneath the glossy surface of the new China to show what daily life is like for its millions of rural poor.