The Red Mirror: Children of China's Cultural Revolution

Collecting these 14 narratives must have been painful work. The author, a U.S. journalist with degrees in sociology and Asian studies, and herself a child in China during the Cultural Revolution, returned years later to interview her contemporaries about their experiences in the tumultuous years from 1965 to 1976. The narrators, now in their mid-30s to early 40s, recall how their families and lives were changed forever by Mao (and the Gang of Four) as he attempted to root out bourgeois and capitalist influences in Chinese society. There are touching instances of self-sacrifice and bravery, and everywhere symbols of dashed hopes: one girl killed her pet hen and made it into chicken soup to bring to her imprisoned father; two brothers, finding their mother's dead body abandoned in the street, surreptitiously buried her. Children were separated from their parents-sometimes forever-or saw their politically disgraced elders imprisoned or sent to brutal reeducation camps. In other families, parents neglected or abandoned their children, and children enthralled by the Red Guards denounced their parents. Years later, the narrators are still overwhelmed with guilt, shame or remorse at the painful recollection of selfish-or simply childish-acts that jeopardized their families. The author's introduction, which contains her own narrative, and the foreword by Richard P. Madsen, provide valuable historical background. The stories here reaffirm that the Cultural Revolution is a scar that continues to mark China for years to come. (Feb.)