The Chinese Western: Short Fiction From Today's China

Paperback. Very Good. From Publishers Weekly The Chinese Cultural Revolution lasted from 1966 to 1976, and reactions to it have dominated Chinese writing since. The so-called "Chinese Western" examines the impact of the Revolution on impoverished, isolated western China, regions profoundly entrenched in tradition. Each of the eight stylistically varied stories selected by Zhu Hong, a professor of American literature in Beijing who has also taught at Harvard, illuminates the bewilderment and undeniable courage of a people confronted by monumental change. In Jia Pingwua's nearly mythic "How Much Can a Man Bear?" the injustices of the Cultural Revolution are only a politicized form of existing enslavement: " 'Let me tell you,' " says a husband to his wife, " 'living, your body belongs to me, and dead, your ghost is mine!' " The urban student who narrates Zhu Xiaoping's "Chronicle of Mulberry Tree Village" observes a destitute rural village to which he has been sent for reeducation and concludes that its guileful inhabitants elude his ability to judge them. Wang Meng's "Anecdotes of Chairman Maimaiti" counters suffering with black humor; a failed author sentenced to labor "with writers he envied" jokes with them after Red Guards assault him for being an "evil liberal writer": " 'Who cares if you folks don't give me recognition! The people consider me a writer!' " One wishes stories by women had also been included, but with novel subjects, richly evoked settings and vivid, often poignant characterizations, this collection has wide appeal. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. ISBN: 0345351401