Embracing the Lie

This volume is the companion to Charles J. Alber's Enduring the Revolution: Ding Ling and the Politics of Literature in Guomindang China. It is the first serious attempt to reconstruct Ding Ling's biography during the last few decades of her life. Most Westerners know her as a progressive woman writer who became famous during the May 4 Movement, championed its values in Yan'an and was criticized in the rectification campaigns that followed. Few know about her life afterward and the arduous process of rehabilitation. Here for the first time readers will learn about her life in the Great Northern Wasteland, solitary confinement in Qincheng prison, her visit to the United States, participation in the spiritual pollution campaign, and finally, the attempt to launch the journal China. All of this puts a new perspective on the life of one of China's most preeminent woman writers.