Grass Soup

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Overview

Zhang Xianliang, one of China's greatest living writers, spent twenty-two years in Chinese prisons and labor camps until his "rehabilitation" in 1979. Through most of those years he kept a diary of his experiences. Because any detail would have meant the diary's destruction and Zhang's execution, the entries were curt and cryptic; sometimes entire days were condensed into two or three words. This is a frightening portrait of how a major civilization can bring itself to its knees by mass complicity (it would have ...
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More About This Book

Overview

Zhang Xianliang, one of China's greatest living writers, spent twenty-two years in Chinese prisons and labor camps until his "rehabilitation" in 1979. Through most of those years he kept a diary of his experiences. Because any detail would have meant the diary's destruction and Zhang's execution, the entries were curt and cryptic; sometimes entire days were condensed into two or three words. This is a frightening portrait of how a major civilization can bring itself to its knees by mass complicity (it would have been absurdly easy to escape from the camp, yet no prisoner ever thought to do so), told with a deft matter-of-factness that only highlights the horror. At the same time, Zhang does not ignore the minor kindnesses and moments of human recognition that dotted his prison years.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Declared a Rightist by the authorities in 1958, Zhang spent 22 years in a labor reform camp in western China, condemned as an ``intellectual.'' Today he is one of China's best-known writers. As a hod carrier, he subsisted on scraps of food with an occasional ``treat'' such as live toad (``a cold appetizer... delicious''). He traces the weakening of his body and spirit to the point where he cared about only two things: the bowl of grass soup that was his evening meal, and taking his next breath. Starvation, he explains, is an effective government policy: ``Only by making people endure hunger can you make them submit to you, worship you.'' Zhang escaped at one point, remaining free until he realized that there was more food available inside the camp than outside it. Because he returned of his own volition, he was not punished, but he had to take part in indoctrinary struggle-and-criticism sessions. His engrossing memoir, based on a diary he kept in 1960-61, demonstrates that it is possible to retain one's humanity even in the face of terrible privation. (July)
Booknews
A translation of Xianliang's diary, based on 22 years in a Chinese labor camp. Annotations fill in the original cryptic entries that, by necessity, left much unsaid. Originally published in Chinese in 1992 by Xiao-shuo Jie and in English by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., London, 1994. 5.25x7.5". Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
George Needham
Zhang Xianliang was a prisoner of the People's Republic of China for more than 20 years between the mid-1950s and 1979, when his "rehabilitation" was completed. His crime was the incautious use of certain words or thoughts in his poetry and prose. During much of his incarceration, Zhang kept a secret diary in a cryptic shorthand. This volume juxtaposes those brief entries with fleshed-out descriptions of everyday life in the labor reeducation camps during the summer of 1960. Daily rations generally consisted of tiny bits of grain and a thin soup made from grass, hence the book's title. The prisoners, thus weakened, were more susceptible to the unceasing political indoctrination. The diary is filled with heartbreaking vignettes of Zhang's fellow prisoners, including a guard who ended up an inmate because one of his prisoners escaped and the camp needed to fill its quota. Another prisoner's wife and young daughter deliver a small package of supplementary food, with fatal results. The stories are overwhelmingly sad, but one must respect and admire Zhang's unfailing human spirit.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781567920307
  • Publisher: Godine, David R. Publishers, Inc.
  • Publication date: 9/1/1995
  • Edition description: 1st American Edition
  • Edition number: 2
  • Pages: 247
  • Product dimensions: 8.10 (w) x 7.98 (h) x 0.57 (d)

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