This novella follows Ah Q, a poor, homeless labourer in a Chinese village in the years around the 1911 revolution. He does odd jobs, is mocked and beaten by others, and comforts himself with a private habit of turning every humiliation into an imagined victory. The narrator tells his tale with mock-solemn humour, as though writing an official biography. As political change reaches the village, Ah Q's hopes and blunders are drawn into events he barely understands. Lu Xun uses the comic figure to satirise self-deception and the weaknesses of a society unable to face its own failings. It is one of the most celebrated works of modern Chinese fiction.