Mao's Lost Children

Stories of the Rusticated Youth of China's Cultural Revolution

Ou Nianzhong and Liang Yongkang, editors

Translated by Laura Maynard

2015, 398 pages, illustrated

ISBN 978-1-937385-67-5 Paper $28.00
ISBN 978-1-937385-68-2 Cloth $65.00

This is a collection of memoirs written by more than fifty Chinese who as young people during the rule of Mao Zedong were rusticated to Hainan Island to clear the jungle for rubber plantations. For the first time outside China, they tell of the fervor with which they embraced rustication, but also of the disenchantment that often followed it. They recount the hardship, back-breaking labor and hunger they suffered, but also the joys and achievements. Their stories are of families torn apart, but also of love affairs—of difficulties ingeniously turned to advantage, of self-education, entertainment and artistic endeavor improvised in a cultural wilderness, of humor and jokes in the darkest of times. They provide unique, first-hand insights into this turbulent and crucial period of China’s recent history, and are also a moving testimony to the indomitable nature of the human spirit.