Grass soup

by Hsien-liang Chang

Zhang Xianliang, one of China's greatest living writers, spent twenty-two years in Chinese prisons and labor camps until his "rehabilitation" in 1979. Through most of those years he kept a diary of his experiences. Because any detail would have meant the diary's destruction and Zhang's execution, the entries were curt and cryptic; sometimes entire days were condensed into two or three words. This is a frightening portrait of how a major civilization can bring itself to its knees by mass complicity (it would have been absurdly easy to escape from the camp, yet no prisoner ever thought to do so), told with a deft matter-of-factness that only highlights the horror. At the same time, Zhang does not ignore the minor kindnesses and moments of human recognition that dotted his prison years.