Customer Reviews

Captive Spirits: Prisoners of the Cultural Revolution

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One of the most famous Chinese novelist BA Jing was also a "captive spirit" during the "Great Cultural Revolution". He kept reciting Divine Comedy in order to help himself endure the adversity. He always believes, there must be a new Dante some day to write a new Divine Comedy. Now I finally find this new Divine Comedy. Please have a read and get to know what is the Inferno in the communist China. You'll find the reason why the communism has to die.

If you're into movies like Good Will Hunting, you'll like this book. The author walks us through the lives of his fellow prisoners while he relats his time spent in the prison. It was Cultural Revolution, many of the prisoners he came across were highly intelligent and well educated. Yang therefore made the best out of the time he had to spend there by learning English, Algebra, and Calculus from his fellow inmates. It's a tragic tale that so many people were jailed because their political views sway a fraction away from that mandated by the government, yet they were exactly the ones who have the knowledge and know-hows to improve the country's economy and living standards. It's also a uplifting tale because you see Yang dug himself out of the troubles he encountered, made it out of the prison, and now became an established economist. He has not let his past kept him hostage like many dissidents Chinese who migrated to the West. A fine tale about humanity and the will to survive that's inside us all. The chinese version of this book is also published by OUP.

I simply can't put it down once I start reading it. It is a great account of the author's growth, from a naive ultra-leftist to someone with a sophisticated mind, who eventually embraced Milton Friedman. And it is a great history of post-liberation China in the eyes of different individuals from all social spectra. After reading it, I realize how naive my understanding of the "cultural revolution" was.

I also read its Chinese version, but I feel that the English version is much better written. Stongly recommended!

This book is a page turner and brings back lots of memories. I spent six years on a Chinese state farm during the Cultural Revolution myself and can relate to some of what he described and went through as far as hard labor, but I can never describe with such vividness and power the heart-wrenching experiences of the disprivileged, deprived, discriminated, and victimized members of the Chinese society under Mao, indeed a virtual prison in every sense of the world. Professor Yang's book is a voice for the voiceless. Captive Spirits not only serves to preserve the history of the brutal laogai system that still exists in China today, but it is also a scathing indictment of a brutal regime under Mao that destroyed the lives of tens of millions of the best that China has to offer to herself and the rest of the humanity. This book alone is enough to put Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and their cronies to the hall of shame once and for all. Professor Yang is no longer with us. He has joined his prison mates Li Jiulong and Liu Fengxian as well as his dear mother to whom he dedicated this book, but his legacy and spirit will stay with us.

Having read and heard quite a lot accounts about the Cultural Revoluntion, I thought I have known enough about what it is about, the prosecution of intellecturals and anyone whose loyalty to the regime is questionable by radical followers of Mao.

Then I came across this book, which opens an entirely new world to me.It depicts a choatic and horrific era of political prosecuation, which was a continuation of earlier political movements of prosecution, and in which people of all walks, regardless of these political ideas take upon each other wherever this is a chance in a game for final survival. Still there are a few noble souls, some were brutaly killded, and some, such as the author, have survived. The author's account of his own experiences in prison is so vivid and gripping, it kept me thinking for this topic for days after finishing the book. To properly describe it in words is already beyond me. Highly recommended.