Xianliang Zhang (1936–2014)

Xianliang Zhang was 21-years-old when he was first sent to a forced labor reeducation camp during the Anti-Rightist Campaign. His poetry had been deemed counter-revolutionary and he would spend a total of 22 years in the camps and prisons over the course of his life. This book is based on scraps of a diary he kept and covers a relatively short amount of time: June 11-September 8, 1960. Each chapter begins with a few diary entries, usually only a sentence or two per entry, and then the author describes all that he could not say about what happened on those days. Because his diary was subject to confiscation and reading by the censors at any time, he had to be extremely circumspect about what he said. But now the author is able to reconstruct the past from the clues in what was said, and equally important what was not said, as well as reflect on the experience from a point decades in the future. The result is a fascinating diary/memoir/history of the day-to-day life of an intellectual struggling to survive famine, but also of the mental gymnastics required to "rehabilitate" oneself when accused of wrong thoughts.… (mer)

A Thoughtful Look at Life in Prison Labor Camp

Zhang Xianliang's semi-autobiographical "Half of Man Is Woman" is a sentimental, pensive look at Zhang's journey through labor camps during the Cultural Revolution.

The bulk of the story occurs between Lin Biao's death and the fall of the Gang of Four, a time when change was hopeful but uncertain. That shows in the writing, which is well-translated by Martha Avery.

Starting in 1957, the author spent 22 years moving through prisons and labor camps. He has every reason to write bitterly and aggressively about the political situation in China, but he does not. Instead, this book is introspective and pensive, giving wonderful environmental and geographic clues about his life on the labor farm.

It has been difficult for me to find books about life in China from the end of the Cultural Revolution through the '90s, so this book filled a good hole.

Unfortunately, because he spent 22 years locked away, we have been deprived of a writer who was, literary, prohibited from writing.… (mer)