The farmers of Paradise County have been leading a hardscrabble\nlife unchanged for generations. The Communist government has\nencouraged them to plant garlic, but selling the crop is not as\nsimple as they believed.

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Warehouses fill up, taxes skyrocket, and government officials\nmaltreat even those who have traveled for days to sell their\nharvest. A surplus on the garlic market ensues, and the farmers\nmust watch in horror as their crops wither and rot in the fields.\nFamilies are destroyed by the random imprisonment of young and old\nfor supposed crimes against the state. The prisoners languish in\nhorrifying conditions in their cells, with only their strength of\ncharacter and thoughts of their loved ones to save them from\nmadness. Meanwhile, a blind minstrel incites the masses to take the\nlaw into their own hands, and a riot of apocalyptic proportions\nfollows with savage and unforgettable consequences.

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The Garlic Ballads is a powerful vision of life under the heel\nof an inflexible and uncaring government. It is also a delicate\nstory of love between man and woman, father and child, friend and\nfriend-and the struggle to maintain that love despite overwhelming\nobstacles.

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