THE ART OF MU XIN: The Landscape Paintings and Prison Notes
Alexandra Monroe, Mu Xin, Mu, . . Yale Univ., $55 (152pp) ISBN 978-0-300-09075-8
Now in his mid-70s, Mu Xin is a reclusive Chinese émigré writer and painter, longtime resident in the Forest Hills section of Queens, N.Y., whose work is unfamiliar to most nonspecialists. Since very few of Mu Xin's voluminous writings in poetry and prose have appeared in English, his writing achievement must be taken on faith in English-speaking countries, but this gorgeous, large-format book leaves his painterly skills in no doubt. Accompanying a traveling exhibition of his paintings, it includes nearly three dozen landscape paintings from the late 1970s, just after the infamous Cultural Revolution, as well as calligraphic sheets written as a political prisoner in 1972, 56 b&w and 54 color illustrations in all. Munroe (
Reviewed on: 12/03/2001
Genre: Nonfiction