Red Sorghum is a novel of family, myth, and memory, set during the
fratricidal barbarity of the 1930s, when the Chinese battled both
Japanese invaders and each other. [It is] narrated by a young man at
the end of the cultural revolution who tells the stories of his father,
Douguan; his granddad, the most ruthless and infamous bandit and
guerrilla commander in the region; and his grandma who fell in love with
the commander when he raped her in the sorghum fields, only three days
after her arranged marriage.