Chinese biographical and Memoir Writings about Mao, the Cultural Revolution and the Emerging Counter Acts in the E-Media

Abstract

As a source for the interpretation and understanding of China's contemporary politics and society in general and of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in particular, memoirs, and biographies written by the Chinese themselves have drawn increasing attention from Western academics. The impact that Yuan Ming, Li Zhisui and Jung Chang have had in the West clearly demonstrates the importance of this genre. One of the 1990s monographs on the Cultural Revolution in English, by Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, relies heavily on these writings and claims to have corrected a few Western misperception of the Cultural Revolution. In published materials there are two categories of memoir and biography literature written by the Chinese. One category is written in Western languages, mainly English, by writers of Chinese ethnic and national background. The second category is written in Chinese by Chinese in China. Of these two categories I am here only dealing with the second category.

While officially published memoirs and biographies both in English and Chinese appear to have increasing importance in formulating specific political discourses and historical narratives and in influencing public perception and opinion of Mao and the Cultural Revolution voices that appear to challenge the dominant official or semi-official political discourse and historical narratives started to appear in recent years. Because the challenge is not officially allowed, especially not allowed in the conventional media the dissenting voice can mostly be heard from the unofficial sources like private conversations and increasingly the flourishing but technologically difficult-controlled e-media. This third category of literature consists of piece meal memories and personal testimonials as well as essays or even short bulletins on Mao and the Cultural Revolution. For all the three categories an evaluation of the literature of this kind is not only useful but also necessary. In this paper I will first discuss the second category of the literature before I move to talk about the e-media challenge to the historical narratives that dominate the public space.