The Seventies Recollecting a Forgotten Time in China

The Seventies (Qishi niandai) is a remarkable compendium of essays recollecting those years originally edited by the poet Bei Dao and the writer/editor Li Tuo, first published in Hong Kong in late 2008. Among the collection's most notable features is its powerful ability to reach back and illuminate that strange decade, now mostly thought of as an interregnum between a just preceding Maoist frenzy with its intense socialism and the ascent of Deng Xiaoping and his new era at the very end of the period. It was also, however, the formative time in the growth of the group of intellectuals, writers and artists--almost all born after 1949--who came to dominate Chinese cultural life by the turn of the century. As "educated urban youth" (zhishi qingnian), many of the writers represented here were at once the most active participants and most evident victims of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that spanned the years between 1966 and 1976. The works selected and translated here provide a series of vivid impressions of what has turned out to be a key period in modern Chinese social, intellectual and artistic life. List of authors: Xu BingBei DaoZhang LanglangAh ChengWang AnyiLi LingYan LiankeWang XiaoniZhai YongmingHan ShaogongDeng Gang