Orphans of the Times - Bei Dao - 文宇宙｜Bookniverse

We were at the peak of these times—there was a feeling of being abandoned,as if we had become orphans of the times.——Bei DaoThis is a powerful collection of essays that re-examines a pivotal and often misunderstood decade in modern Chinese history. Originally edited by acclaimed poet Bei Dao and literary critic Li Tuo, this book pulls back the curtain on a decade often seen as a void between Mao’s rigid control and the explosion of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. But for this generation, the ’70s was a crucible—the time they came of age and fought to find their own voices.Many of the writers and artists represented here were sent to the countryside as “educated urban youth.” They were both participants in and victims of the Cultural Revolution. Through a series of unfiltered portraits and vivid impressions, this book reveals what it was like to be young, restless, and searching for meaning in a society of conformity. The essays also reveal that the foundations of the “new enlightenment” of the 1980s were laid in the quiet defiance of the ’70s. As Eliot Weinberger notes in the foreword, those individuals, the “orphans of the times,” would lead a revolution within the revolution.With essays from:Xu Bing Wang AnyiBei Dao Li LingZhai Yongming Deng GangZhang Langlang Wang XiaoniHan Shaogong Huang ZipingAh Cheng