Woman from Shanghai: Tales of Survival from a Chinese Labor Camp

Imagine being hungry enough to eat rats, worms, or human flesh to stay alive; these were the modes of survival for more than 3,000 of China's intellectual and political elites, known as ""Rightists,"" who became the victims of Chairman Mao's policies in the years 1957-1960. Written in short-story form, Xianhui reveals the astounding tales of 13 survivors of a forced labor camp in the northwestern region of China. There, prisoners were forced to grow crops and raise livestock in the harsh environment of the Gobi Desert. Camp conditions were horrendous and treatment from the guards was brutal. The situation became so ghastly that, by 1960, the sand dunes surrounding the camp were littered with corpses, and officials had to close the camp; only 600 survived. The government then orchestrated a cover-up, rewriting the medical records of the dead and excising any mention of starvation. Moving and powerful, these stories are written as documentary literature, a form of reporting involving fictional elements created by Chinese journalists to disguise their subjects and escape retaliation from a still powerful government. The narratives also preserve the record of a regime's unspeakable inhumanity towards its people, events which were unrecorded for decades.