This series of first-person narratives eloquently describes the
life-long influence of this seminal period on China's children.
Those who were teenagers in the late 1960s joined the Red Guards and
the revolutionary rebel groups, following Mao's directives to make
revolution, often to their own undoing. Those who were too young
to participate directly were even more vulnerable. Although they
had little understanding of the political firestorm that engulfed
their parents, they were old enough to understand and feel the
terror it brought. Vividly capturing the emotional intensity of the
time, these stories explore what it was like to be caught up in
revolutionary fervor, to be sent to the countryside, to be separated
-- either ideologically or physically -- from one's parents, often
forever.
By undermining families and family structure, the Cultural
Revolution created a generation of Chinese who view politics, the
Communist Party, and life itself with deep cynicism. Presenting a
spectrum of individual stories of people who saw the Cultural
Revolutions though the eyes of a child, The Red Mirror
offers rare insights for understanding the crippling legacy of the
Cultural Revolution.
This page last updated on:
Jan 8 1996
Introduction by Richard Madsen
Book Description
The Red Mirror is an anthology of
stories that bring to life the tragic personal impact of
the Cultural Revolution on the families of China's intellectuals.
Now adults, survivors recall their childhood during the tumultuous
years between 1965 and 1976, when Mao's death finally drew a curtain
on a bitterly failed social and political experiment.
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