Zhangxianliang biography graphic organizers

Zhang Xianliang (Chinese: 张贤亮; December 1936 – 27 September 2014) was a Chinese novelist, essayist, and poet, and former president of the Chinese Writers Association in Ningxia.

Zhang Xianliang's heterotopia.

Zhang Xianliang's heterotopia.

This study focuses on the prison writings from and about modern China (from the Mao era to the present day).

The dissertation studies the fictional journey of Zhang Xianliang from the viewpoint of political unconscious.

Much has been written on scar-literature, but Zhang XIanliang's work is considered to transcend this genre that deals with the trauma.

Zhang Xianliang has never written an autobiography, yet has pro- duced one of the most revealing studies of the nature of self in post-war Chinese history.

He was detained as a political prisoner during the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957,^[1] until his political rehabilitation in 1979. His most well known works, including Half of Man is Woman and Grass Soup, were semi-autobiographical reflections on his life experiences in prison and in witnessing the political upheaval of China during the Cultural Revolution.^[2]

Life

Zhang Xianliang was born in 1936 into an upper-middle-class family in Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China.

His father was a Kuomintang official and industrialist who managed a number of companies. Following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, Zhang's father was accused of espionage, and later died in prison.^[3]

Zhang began publishing poetry at the age of 13.