Swan and Spider Eater in Problematic Memoirs of Cultural Revolution

Abstract

In the last fifteen years, numerous memoirs have appeared describing modern Chinese society from an individual standpoint. The great majority are written in English by Chinese women who were born in mainland China and “escaped” to the West after the Cultural Revolution. Among the most famous examples are Nien Cheng’s Life and Death in Shanghai, Anchee Min’s Red Azalea, Rae Yang’s Spider Eaters: A Memoir, Tingxing Ye’s A Leaf in the Bitter Wind: A Memoir, and, of course, Jung Chang’s Wild Swans: Three Generations of Chinese Women. 1