Remolding and Resistance Among Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp

Disciplined and published

Philip Williams, Yenna Wu

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780415770200
• eBook ISBN: 9781135987855
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Even in the twenty-first century, the contemporary Chinese prison camp remains a more obscure and poorly understood realm than the Forbidden City of old. Apolitical service organizations such as the International Red Cross have routinely been denied access to PRC prison camps and prison camp inmates who have smuggled out frank, unofficial accounts of their incarceration have only been published overseas, and often had their sentences extended as a result.

Presenting extensive analysis of literary and biographical accounts, this illuminating book provides a window to the affective side and emotional tenor of day-to-day life in modern day labour camps. With contributions from well-known and respected scholars, the book covers the contentious issues of prison economics, prisoner 'remolding' and post-traumatic stress disorder. Drawing parallels with Soviet, Nazi and Japanese prison camp practice, this outstanding new book will be invaluable to those interested in how the human mind responds to extremity, as well as to scholars of Chinese history, politics, literature and sociology.

Table of contents

• Asia’s Transformations
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The repercussions of thought remolding and forced labor on Chinese writers
• 2 Zhang Xianliang as author and hero
• 3 Traumatic “remolding” and its ethical implications in three of Zhang Xianliang’s novels
• 4 Labor-camp fiction as conversion literature
• 5 Resisting the regime of remolding
• 6 Expressing the “inexpressible”
• 7 Profit and loss in China’s contemporary prison system
• Sinograph glossary of selected names and terms
• Sinograph glossary of selected titles
• Index