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Literature
(Note: In the US we are used to discussing China only in terms of politics &
ideology. The stories below are not about ideology. They are about how good Chinese people have miraculously survived
crap which has been flung at them from within, and from without. But once you have read these you will understand
a whole lot more about the role ideology plays in all of our lives.)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
- Dai Sijie (fiction)
Children sent away for "re-education" during the Cultural Revolution find some hidden Chinese translations
of Western classics, books that weren't supposed to exist. And it opens worlds that also weren't supposed to exist.
Wild Swans - Jung Chang (autobiography)
Three generations of women in a Chinese family who survived the 20th century. If you only read this one book you
will finally understand what hard work it has been to be Chinese over the last century, or more.
China Dawn - David Sheff (non-fiction)
David Sheff tells the ongoing story of the Chinese entrepreneurs - some of whom initially left China, but went
back - who are building China's exhilerating information & tech revolution. They are smart. They care. And
in some ways they are out-doing the West.
Colors of the Mountain - Da
Chen (autobiography)
Da grew up in southern China in the 60's and 70's. Unfortunate enough to be a landlord's kid, Da found out what
it was like to be from the wrong class in a class-less society. The cultural revolution through the eyes of a child.
Red China Blues - Jan Wong (autobiography)
Funny and poignant. In 1972 this Canadian daughter of Chinese immigrants went to the nation of her ancestry to
participate in the perfect revolution. Ah, the enthusiasm of youth.
Soul Mountain - Gao Xingjian
(autobiographical fiction)
An artist, writer & playwright, Gao Xingjian - who during the Cultural Revolution wrote, hid and destroyed
several hundred of his own creations - is the first Chinese to win the Nobel Prize for Literature with this book.
Beyond the Stone Arches, An American Missionary Doctor in China 1892-1932 - Edward Bliss Jr.
The author, himself a distinguished journalist, tells the story of his father, who served the Chinese people through
the feudal years at the turn of the century, until the coming revolution forces him to leave.
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