A Single Tear: A Family's Persecution, Love, and Endurance in Communist China - Softcover

Wu, Ningkun; Li, Yikai

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316956392 ISBN 13: 9780316956390

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 1994

Synopsis

Professor Wu, educated in the U.S., relates his prison experiences in a Chinese labor farm after being labeled an "ultrarightist" by his academic colleagues at Beijing University

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

English literature professor Wu affectingly recalls 30 years of repression as a Chinese intellectual. Seeking "a meaningful life in a brave new world," Wu left a graduate program at the University of Chicago in 1951 to teach in his homeland, only to discover that "thought reform" (brainwashing) had enveloped his new university. Quoting FDR and Patrick Henry, he found himself denounced as a reactionary and sent in 1958 to a state labor farm and prison, where several inmates starved to death. Wu's account is laced with irony and leavened by his frequent recourse to use of literature--including works by Steinbeck, Shakespeare, Eliot and the Chinese poet Du Fu--to gain inspiration and perspective. Wu was granted parole in 1961, but was swept up in the Cultural Revolution and in 1968 sent to the countryside, where he witnessed the peasants' suffering under the despotic local cadres. He returned to teaching in 1974 and was ultimately rehabilitated in 1979. Yikai, Wu's wife, narrates three chapters on how living apart from Wu affected her and her children. The family now lives in the United States.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Wu served as an English interpreter in China in World War II, then pursued graduate studies in English literature in the United States. He went back to China in 1951, accepting a position at a university (where he met and married Li). Branded an "ultrarightist" in 1958, he spent years in and out of reeducation camps. His account is complemented by Li's narration of the hardships she and their three children endured. One wonders why there are more quotations from Western literature than from Chinese literature, and the reconstructed dialog occasionally seems contrived, but this book remains a remarkable testament to human courage. Though not as detailed on prison life as Bao Ruo-wang's Prisoner of Mao ( LJ 9/15/73), it is recommended for its broader portrayal of the oppression of both the prisoner and his family under Chinese communism.
- Kenneth W. Berger, Duke Univ. Lib., Durham, N.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0316956392
• ISBN 13: 9780316956390
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384