Woman from Shanghai

August 3, 2009
Imagine being hungry enough to eat rats, worms, or human flesh to stay alive; these were the modes of survival for more than 3,000 of China's intellectual and political elites, known as "Rightists," who became the victims of Chairman Mao's policies in the years 1957-1960. Written in short-story form, Xianhui reveals the astounding tales of 13 survivors of a forced labor camp in the northwestern region of China. There, prisoners were forced to grow crops and raise livestock in the harsh environment of the Gobi Desert. Camp conditions were horrendous and treatment from the guards was brutal. The situation became so ghastly that, by 1960, the sand dunes surrounding the camp were littered with corpses, and officials had to close the camp; only 600 survived. The government then orchestrated a cover-up, rewriting the medical records of the dead and excising any mention of starvation. Moving and powerful, these stories are written as documentary literature, a form of reporting involving fictional elements created by Chinese journalists to disguise their subjects and escape retaliation from a still powerful government. The narratives also preserve the record of a regime's unspeakable inhumanity towards its people, events which were unrecorded for decades.

August 25, 2009
Since the 1980s, Chinese writers have bypassed censorship by writing "documentary literature," blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Drawing on 100-plus interviews, Xianhui Yang's 13 thinly disguised stories chronicle the brutality of the Jiabiangou labor camp in China's Gobi Desert region. Between 1957 and 1960, some 3000 dissidents were sent to Jiabiangou. When the camp was shut down in 1961 because of mass deaths from starvation, only 500 had survived, through stealing, foraging, and even such horrifying means as culling excretions and harvesting corpses. Verdict While absolutely necessary as historical testimony, this work is unrelentingly difficult reading and not for the faint-hearted (or faint-stomached). Recommended for readers seriously interested in 20th-century Asian history. Less graphic alternatives include Xinran's The Good Women of China and China Witness.-Terry Hong, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program, Washington, DC

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