Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution -- Tania Branigan, Hardcover

"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?

Author: Tania Branigan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 05/09/2023
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.38h x 6.31w x 1.04d
ISBN: 9781324051954

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 12/01/2022 pg. 18
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2023
Publishers Weekly 03/27/2023
Booklist 04/01/2023 pg. 15