Orphans of the Times: Chinese Writers and Artists in the Seventies
About this ebook
as if we had become orphans of the times.
——Bei Dao
This is a powerful collection of essays that re-examines a pivotal and often misunderstood decade in modern Chinese history. Originally edited by acclaimed poet Bei Dao and literary critic Li Tuo, this book pulls back the curtain on a decade often seen as a void between Mao’s rigid control and the explosion of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. But for this generation, the ’70s was a crucible—the time they came of age and fought to find their own voices.
Many of the writers and artists represented here were sent to the countryside as “educated urban youth.” They were both participants in and victims of the Cultural Revolution. Through a series of unfiltered portraits and vivid impressions, this book reveals what it was like to be young, restless, and searching for meaning in a society of conformity. The essays also reveal that the foundations of the “new enlightenment” of the 1980s were laid in the quiet defiance of the ’70s. As Eliot Weinberger notes in the foreword, those individuals, the “orphans of the times,” would lead a revolution within the revolution.
With essays from:
Xu Bing Wang Anyi
Bei Dao Li Ling
Zhai Yongming Deng Gang
Zhang Langlang Wang Xiaoni
Han Shaogong Huang Ziping
Ah Cheng
About the author
Bei Dao, the pseudonym of Zhao Zhenkai, is a world-renowned poet, a central figure of China’s “Misty Poets” movement, a co-founder and editor of the literary magazine Jintian (Today), and the founder of the Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation. He is also an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Bei Dao’s books of poetry include The August Sleepwalker (1988), Old Snow (1991), Forms of Distance (1994), Landscape Over Zero (1996), At the Sky’s Edge: Poems 1991–1996 (1996), Unlock (2000), The Rose of Time: New & Selected Poems (2010), and Sidetracks (2024). He is also the author of the short-story collection Waves (1985); the essay collections Blue House (2000) and Midnight’s Gate (2005); and the memoir City Gate, Open Up (2017). His works have been translated into over thirty languages, and he has received numerous international literary awards, including the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
Li Tuo is a prominent writer, critic, and editor in contemporary China. He is among the leading Chinese intellectuals who have helped shape the post-Mao cultural landscape. He served as the executive editor of the journal Beijing wenxue (Beijing Literature) in the 1980s and became the founding editor of the journal Shijie (Horizons) in the 1990s and 2000s. His current editorial role includes the Jintian (Today) magazine.
Li Tuo’s creative works are numerous, including screenplays for award-winning films, such as Li Siguang (1979) and Sha Ou (The Drive to Win, 1981). He is the author of award-winning short stories, a novel Wumingzhi (Beijing Blues) as well as many critical essays and anthologies. Li Tuo’s book Avalanche — a volume of his seminal essays — is being translated into English. He lives in Beijing and New York and is an Adjunct Associate Research Scholar at Columbia University.
Professor emeritus in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was chief editor of Renditions from 2010 until the journal’s closing in 2024. He has written extensively on modern Chinese literature and intellectual history, with key work on figures like Qian Zhongshu, Lu Xun, and Yan Fu. His publications include Bringing the World Home (2005) and Taking China to the World (2022). He has translated works by Bei Dao, Lu Xun, Wang Guowei, Wang Hui, Wang Xiaoming, and Zhang Lihua.
