Grass soup
By: Zhang Xianliang ; translated from the Chinese by Martha Avery.
Publisher: Secker & Warburg
Published: 1994
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 247
Subjects: Chang, Hsien-liang.; Political prisoners -- China
Work titles: Fan nao chin shih chi hui.
Description: " ... Zhang manages to rekindle horror and shock by revisiting the worst place at the worst time: China's gulag during Mao's 'Great Leap Forward' ... It is Zhang's deft, matter-of-fact account that makes this gruesome story a gripping read."--Nation, 07/31/1995 Jianying Zha.

" ... at the end one feels that Zhang has said all he can on the camps ... Zhang Xianliang's memoir is finely rendered by Martha Avery, with a delicacy and concentration that makes it a work of literature as well."--New York Review of Books, 8/10/1995 Jonathan.

"An extraordinary glimpse into one of the darkest periods of human history."--Kirkus, 05.01/1995.

"Zhang tells his story simply and vividly in prose bristling with sharp sensory detail and savage wit."--Far Eastern Economic Review*

A translation of Xianliang's diary, based on 22 years in a Chinese labor camp. Annotations fill in the original cryptic entries that, by necessity, left much unsaid. Originally published in Chinese in 1992 by Xiao-shuo Jie and in English by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., London, 1994. 5.25x7.5."

Zhang, one of China's greatest living writers, spent 22 years in Chinese labor camps, and kept a diary of his experiences. He later annotated this diary, filling in everything that the original left unsaid. "Grass Soup" is his portrait of degradation and redemption during the Cultural Revolution. Like Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," it forcefully describes not only how far humanity can fall, but also how people continue to live and hope.
Notes: Translation of: Fan nao chin shih chi hui.