The Ultimate China Bookshelf #47: Kang Zhengguo’s Confessions:

An innocent life in Communist China

“A mesmerizing read... Like a character in a picaresque novel, Mr. Kang stumbles from one misadventure to the next, his big mouth and relaxed habits ensuring disaster at every turn... Mr. Kang serves as an extraordinary guide through an extraordinary period of Chinese history.” – New York Times

"A wonderful book, the detailed coming-of-age accounts will capture teens interested in Chinese history and culture.” – Booklist

“The author's rugged individualism takes his story beyond the usual narrative of persecution and hardship, making it an incisive, personal critique of China.” Publishers Weekly

"A haunting, frightening and ultimately inspiring story, told in sturdy, unadorned prose." –Kirkus

Author Bio:

Kāng Zhèngguǒ 康正果 was born in 1943. Despite the interruption to his education caused by the Cultural Revolution and his expulsion from university in 1965, Kang eventually gained an MA in 1987 from Shaanxi Teachers University. Kang is also the author of Lu Meng (Deer Dreams, 1999), Feminism and Literature (1994), and A Study of Classical Chinese Poetry on Women and by Women (1988) — all yet to be translated into English. Kang was involved in the Tiananmen protests of 1989 and eventually left China. He became a senior lector of Chinese at Yale University in 1984. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

The Book in 150 words:

An intimate memoir (translated by Susan Wilf) of everyday life and Communist power from the first days following the establishment of the PRC in 1949 through the Tiananmen Square protests and after. Kang Zhengguo, born into a professional family, grows up a free spirit finding himself drawn to literature. But in Mao's China, his background and interests are enough to condemn him at a young age to a fierce struggle session, expulsion from university, and a four-year term of hard labor in Xian's Number Two Brickyard. Kang then catalogs his extended internment in the Maoist prison camp system. At twenty-eight he is adopted by an aging bachelor in a peasant village, which enables him to start a new life. Rehabilitated after Mao's death, Kang finds himself still subject to the recurring nightmare of Party authority.