The Field of Life and Death is Xiao Hong's classic masterpiece. It deals deeply and incisively with the age-old questions of human nature and human existence. The novel comprises a total of seventeen chapters, and from the first to last chapter, Xiao Hong movingly describes the powerless, backbreaking lives of the poor farmers of northeastern China. They had to bear the brutalities of their landlord, 365 days a year, with every day spent with their backs to the blue sky, faces to the earth. This life of hard physical exertion, bent backs, tired legs, was not even enough to provide them with sufficient food and sustenance. In this dog's life, filled with suffering from hunger and disease, children were born malformed.
These reflections on the people's life and death struggles went beyond what the vast majority of her contemporaries wrote. Nevertheless, there were those criticised her work, pointing out that it was split into two very different halves: while its first half deals with the problem of human existence, the latter half suddenly turns to the future of the revolution. The famous Chinese writer, Lu Xun, however, in his prologue to the work called it a powerful and penetrating picture of the strengths and struggles of the Northern farmers.