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Many of the writers and artists represented here were sent to the countryside as “educated urban youth.” They were both participants in and victims of the Cultural Revolution. Through a series of unfiltered portraits and vivid impressions, this book reveals what it was like to be young, restless, and searching for meaning in a society of conformity. The essays also reveal that the foundations of the “new enlightenment” of the 1980s were laid in the quiet defiance of the ’70s. As Eliot Weinberger notes in the foreword, those individuals, the “orphans of the times,” would lead a revolution within the revolution.
Bei Dao, the pseudonym of Zhao Zhenkai, is a worldrenowned poet, a central figure of China’s “Misty Poets” movement, a co-founder and editor of the literary magazine Jintian (Today), and the founder of the Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation. He is also an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Bei Dao’s books of poetry include The August Sleepwalker (1988), Old Snow (1991), Forms of Distance (1994), Landscape Over Zero (1996), At the Sky’s Edge: Poems 1991–1996 (1996), Unlock (2000), The Rose of Time: New & Selected Poems (2010), and Sidetracks (2024). He is also the author of the short-story collection Waves (1985); the essay collections Blue House (2000) and Midnight’s Gate (2005); and the memoir City Gate, Open Up (2017). His works have been translated into over thirty languages, and he has received numerous international literary awards, including the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
Li Tuo is a prominent writer, critic, and editor in contemporary China. He is among the leading Chinese intellectuals who have helped shape the post-Mao cultural landscape. He served as the executive editor of the journal Beijing wenxue (Beijing Literature) in the 1980s and became the founding editor of the journal Shijie (Horizons) in the 1990s and 2000s. His current editorial role includes the Jintian (Today) magazine. Li Tuo’s creative works are numerous, including screenplays for award-winning films, such as Li Siguang (1979) and Sha Ou (The Drive to Win, 1981). He is the author of awardwinning short stories, a novel Wumingzhi (Beijing Blues) as well as many critical essays and anthologies. Li Tuo's book Avalanche— a volume of Li Tuo’s seminal essays — is being translated into English. He lives in Beijing and New York and is an Adjunct Associate Research Scholar at Columbia University.
Theodore Huters is professor emeritus in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. He was chief editor of Renditions from 2010 until the journal’s closing in 2024. He has written extensively on modern Chinese literature and intellectual history, with key work on figures like Qian Zhongshu, Lu Xun, and Yan Fu. His publications include Bringing the World Home (2005) and Taking China to the World (2022). He has translated works by Bei Dao, Lu Xun, Wang Guowei, Wang Hui, Wang Xiaoming, and Zhang Lihua."
Preface
Introduction
Nourished by Ignorance by Xu Bing
Out of Context by Bei Dao
Hapless Youth by Zhai Yongming
A Quiet Horizon by Zhang Langlang
A Very Long Vacation by Han Shaogong
Listening to Enemy Broadcasts by Ah Cheng
Wei Village by Wang Anyi
The Seventies: Fragments of My Heart by Li Ling
I Was a Wolf of the Mountains, a Pirate of the Seas by Deng Gang
Scattered Memories of the Seventies by Wang Xiaoni
Practical Linguistics of the 1970s by Huang Ziping
About the Translators
Timeline: Major Events of the Cultural Revolution and Featured Authors
Glossary