Red Memory
The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
by Tania Branigan
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Pub Date May 09 2023 | Archive Date Apr 30 2023
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Description
An indelible exploration of the invisible scar that runs through the heart of Chinese society and the souls of its citizens.
“It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution,” Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children turned on parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized, and imprisoned. Yet in China this brutal and turbulent period exists, for the most part, as an absence; official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia.
Red Memory uncovers forty years of silence through the stories of individuals who lived through the madness. Deftly exploring how this era defined a generation and continues to impact China today, Branigan asks: What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited, or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?
About the Author: Tania Branigan writes editorials for the Guardian and spent seven years as its China correspondent, reporting on politics, the economy, and social changes. Her work has also appeared in the Washington Post.
Advance Praise
"What makes Branigan’s account special is captured in a line at the end of her work: ‘This book could not be written if I were to begin it today’…. Amid the growing difficulties of accessing lived experiences in China, Branigan’s lyrical style of writing lends itself well to intimate encounters with interviewees.… Her humanising approach to writing about China is particularly valuable amid our current polarising geopolitical narrative, which loves strong lines between enemies and allies. It is also appropriate for capturing a decade in which the line between hunter and hunted shifted with the political winds of the day." - Yuan Yang, Financial Times
"This book is thoroughly deserving of prominence. It is complex … because so is China." - Max Hastings, Sunday Times
"[A] penetrating study of the buried stories of the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976." - Isabel Hinton, Prospect
"This is a beautifully written and thought-provoking book." - Yuan Yi Zhu, The Times
"Tania Branigan’s prose is masterful and crystalline. It feels as if Joan Didion turned her powers of observation on China. Red Memory is the kind of book capable of altering your understanding of an unforgettable episode that is not a strange artifact of history but, rather, an urgent warning about our deepest, most durable frailties." - Evan Osnos, National Book Award–winning author of Age of Ambition and Wildland
"Red Memory shows how the psychic wounds of Mao Zedong’s decade of madness endure to this day, replicating themselves through the generations." - Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy and Eat the Buddha
"Tania Branigan offers nuanced, humane portraits of people whose lives were transformed by those years, and also teaches the reader much about the politics of memory." - Hari Kunzru, author of Red Pill
"Without understanding the Cultural Revolution and its long-term influence, it is impossible to understand today’s China. I hope that all China experts, policymakers, think tankers, and the public perceive this and read Red Memory." - Peidong Sun, associate professor of history, Cornell University
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781324051954 |
| PRICE | $29.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 288 |
