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Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution
A searing first hand account of China's Cultural Revolution that joins the ranks of great memoirs such as Life and Death in Shanghai , Wild Swans and A Chinese Odyssey
First banned in its native land, this earthy, unflinching memoir has become one of the biggest bestsellers in the history of China.
In 1968, a fervent young Red Guard joined the army of hotheaded adolescents who trekked to Inner Mongolia to spread the Cultural Revolution. After gaining a reputation as a brutal abuser of the local herd owners and nomads, Ma Bo casually criticized a Party Leader. Denounced as an “active counterrevolutionary” and betrayed by his friends, the idealistic youth was brutally beaten and imprisoned.
Charged with passion, never doctrinaire, Blood Red Sunset is a startlingly vivid and personal narrative that opens a window on the psyche of totalitarian excess that no other work of history can provide. This is a tale of ideology and disillusionment, a powerful work of political and literary importance.
“A deceptively straightforward story carried forward by deep currents of insight.”— The Washington Post
“A genuine, no-holds-barred, unadorned piece of writing…echoing the realities of contemporary China.”—Liu Binyan, The New York Times Book Review
First banned in its native land, this earthy, unflinching memoir has become one of the biggest bestsellers in the history of China.
In 1968, a fervent young Red Guard joined the army of hotheaded adolescents who trekked to Inner Mongolia to spread the Cultural Revolution. After gaining a reputation as a brutal abuser of the local herd owners and nomads, Ma Bo casually criticized a Party Leader. Denounced as an “active counterrevolutionary” and betrayed by his friends, the idealistic youth was brutally beaten and imprisoned.
Charged with passion, never doctrinaire, Blood Red Sunset is a startlingly vivid and personal narrative that opens a window on the psyche of totalitarian excess that no other work of history can provide. This is a tale of ideology and disillusionment, a powerful work of political and literary importance.
“A deceptively straightforward story carried forward by deep currents of insight.”— The Washington Post
“A genuine, no-holds-barred, unadorned piece of writing…echoing the realities of contemporary China.”—Liu Binyan, The New York Times Book Review
384 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1995
About the author
Ma Bo
21 books2 followersMa Bo (born August 22, 1947) is a Chinese non-fiction writer who currently resides in Beijing, China. After graduating from Beijing University with a degree in journalism, he wrote and published the book Blood Red Sunset in 1988 which sold over 400,000 copies in China.
Subsequently as a result of his participation in Tiananmen Square, he fled the country, first to France, and then ultimately to the US, where he settled as a resident scholar in Brown University's Literary Arts program.
In 1995, the English translation of Blood Red Sunset (Penguin, 1995) was published with Howard Goldblatt as translator. Also in 1995, Ma Bo's mother, Yang Mo, a prominent writer herself, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Consequently, upon special permission from the Chinese government, Ma Bo returned to China to visit his mother in the hospital. He has remained in China since then.
(from Wikipedia)
Subsequently as a result of his participation in Tiananmen Square, he fled the country, first to France, and then ultimately to the US, where he settled as a resident scholar in Brown University's Literary Arts program.
In 1995, the English translation of Blood Red Sunset (Penguin, 1995) was published with Howard Goldblatt as translator. Also in 1995, Ma Bo's mother, Yang Mo, a prominent writer herself, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Consequently, upon special permission from the Chinese government, Ma Bo returned to China to visit his mother in the hospital. He has remained in China since then.
(from Wikipedia)
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September 1, 2017From US Amazon
First banned in its native land, this earthy, unflinching memoir has become one of the biggest bestsellers in the history of China.
In 1968, a fervent young Red Guard joined the army of hotheaded adolescents who trekked to Inner Mongolia to spread the Cultural Revolution. After gaining a reputation as a brutal abuser of the local herd owners and nomads, Ma Bo casually criticized a Party Leader. Denounced as an “active counterrevolutionary” and betrayed by his friends, the idealistic youth was brutally beaten and imprisoned.
Charged with passion, never doctrinaire, Blood Red Sunset is a startlingly vivid and personal narrative that opens a window on the psyche of totalitarian excess that no other work of history can provide. This is a tale of ideology and disillusionment, a powerful work of political and literary importance.
First banned in its native land, this earthy, unflinching memoir has become one of the biggest bestsellers in the history of China.
In 1968, a fervent young Red Guard joined the army of hotheaded adolescents who trekked to Inner Mongolia to spread the Cultural Revolution. After gaining a reputation as a brutal abuser of the local herd owners and nomads, Ma Bo casually criticized a Party Leader. Denounced as an “active counterrevolutionary” and betrayed by his friends, the idealistic youth was brutally beaten and imprisoned.
Charged with passion, never doctrinaire, Blood Red Sunset is a startlingly vivid and personal narrative that opens a window on the psyche of totalitarian excess that no other work of history can provide. This is a tale of ideology and disillusionment, a powerful work of political and literary importance.
February 5, 2016
For once the blurb on a book cover describes a book perfectly - this is (on the surface) a deceptively straightforward book, but it actually has deep currents of insight.
Ma Bo is send to work in the Mongolian Steppes in the tumultuous years of Cultural Revolution in China, where he acts like a bully at first. He falls in love which is hopelessly one-sided and the fact that he is aware of his situation is more heart-breaking.
Brass and ugly (in his own view), and branded as a counter-revolutionary (because why the hell not), Ma Bo starts living and working as a hermit with very little contact with his friends and co-workers. The beauty of the book is that never once does he doubts his own communist ideals. On the contrary, he spends his time to clear his name from being called a counter-revolutionary and to be accepted again by his friends, and somehow being loved back by the girl he is in love with.
I have read many auto/biographies and in most of them, even inadvertently, the author sings his/her own praises at the cost of friends and co-workers. Ma Bo, surprisingly, accepts his failure as a friend and a son (he ransacked his own home as a Red Guard), and never tries to placate the readers (and himself) with justifications.
What I really liked about the book was its simplistic approach towards life, its author's small yet meaningful goals, and above all, his desire to better himself, without excuses.
February 20, 2024
Reflective in a way that makes no excuses and is at times uncomfortably honest. Inspirational in that sense. I read this for the first time during the covid lockdown and it made me think, damn, at least I'm not this guy. 10/10 would rip some 白酒 with guy and his allegedly pointy head.
March 27, 2024
wow, this book was truly truly something else. his stilted, matter of fact style only helped his narrative more. and it didn't even need help! what a memoir.
April 21, 2021
Blood Red Sunset, by Ma Bo, translated by Howard Goldblatt. 4/5 stars
Originally published in Chinese, 1988. Published in English by Penguin Books, 1995.
Memoir
Jack T., Class II
Blood Red Sunset is the memoir of a Red Guard soldier about his part in Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, a movement from 1966-1976 in communist China in which radicalized student militias, or Red Guards, propelled a frenzied purge of intellectuals and anyone considered even remotely counter-revolutionary, or opposed to Maoist ideals. Ma Bo joins many of his school friends and other revolutionaries in Inner Mongolia, where they attempt to convert the Mongolians to the ideology of class struggle. Soon enough, however, Ma is imprisoned after a close friend betrays him for his off-hand criticisms of the government, and so begins his years-long struggle to prove his genuine commitment to Zedong and Chinese communist ideals.
This is an epic story of suffering, revolutionary zeal gone far off the rails, and determination of one man to clear his name in a political atmosphere reminiscent of The Crucible--in which everyone and anyone is suspect of thinking counter-revolutionary thoughts, and the only way to save yourself is false confession and incriminating others. It’s a memoir for anyone who enjoys a zoomed-in, human view of history and the countless tragedies and triumphs occurring along its way. Anyone who seeks a window into the experiences of political prisoners and forced laborers, will also find this novel revealing, if heavy.
One of the greatest themes beyond ideology is the brutality of nature. After Ma is released from prison, he is sentenced to hard labor with other outcasts on a nearby mountain, and the unforgiving winters there made for shocking reading: “Our only source of water up there, both for cooking and hygiene, was snow. Bathing was out of the question (washing your face was bad enough), as was changing clothes,” he says at one point. I was deeply moved by Ma’s trials and resilience in the face of incredible hardship.
Later, after several years of solitary hard labor on the mountain, Ma gives the remarks I will never forget: “I had spent a total of three years up there, a drop in the bucket compared to the twenty-four years Robinson Crusoe was on his island, but long enough to have suffered devastating effects, the worst of which was a deterioration in my ability to engage in conversation. My vocabulary had shrunk dramatically, to probably no more than fifteen hundred words, which made it nearly impossible to express myself clearly. And my memory had grown so bad, I’d forget what I was saying mid-sentence.”
Ultimately, this memoir kept me turning pages till the end as I hoped along with Ma that his relentless appeals to his supervisors would finally result in exoneration. I found it a great way of expanding my own reading list to include a topic not usually discussed in the classroom or in American society generally, yet was still such an important part of world history.
ISBN: 9780140159424
Originally published in Chinese, 1988. Published in English by Penguin Books, 1995.
Memoir
Jack T., Class II
Blood Red Sunset is the memoir of a Red Guard soldier about his part in Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, a movement from 1966-1976 in communist China in which radicalized student militias, or Red Guards, propelled a frenzied purge of intellectuals and anyone considered even remotely counter-revolutionary, or opposed to Maoist ideals. Ma Bo joins many of his school friends and other revolutionaries in Inner Mongolia, where they attempt to convert the Mongolians to the ideology of class struggle. Soon enough, however, Ma is imprisoned after a close friend betrays him for his off-hand criticisms of the government, and so begins his years-long struggle to prove his genuine commitment to Zedong and Chinese communist ideals.
This is an epic story of suffering, revolutionary zeal gone far off the rails, and determination of one man to clear his name in a political atmosphere reminiscent of The Crucible--in which everyone and anyone is suspect of thinking counter-revolutionary thoughts, and the only way to save yourself is false confession and incriminating others. It’s a memoir for anyone who enjoys a zoomed-in, human view of history and the countless tragedies and triumphs occurring along its way. Anyone who seeks a window into the experiences of political prisoners and forced laborers, will also find this novel revealing, if heavy.
One of the greatest themes beyond ideology is the brutality of nature. After Ma is released from prison, he is sentenced to hard labor with other outcasts on a nearby mountain, and the unforgiving winters there made for shocking reading: “Our only source of water up there, both for cooking and hygiene, was snow. Bathing was out of the question (washing your face was bad enough), as was changing clothes,” he says at one point. I was deeply moved by Ma’s trials and resilience in the face of incredible hardship.
Later, after several years of solitary hard labor on the mountain, Ma gives the remarks I will never forget: “I had spent a total of three years up there, a drop in the bucket compared to the twenty-four years Robinson Crusoe was on his island, but long enough to have suffered devastating effects, the worst of which was a deterioration in my ability to engage in conversation. My vocabulary had shrunk dramatically, to probably no more than fifteen hundred words, which made it nearly impossible to express myself clearly. And my memory had grown so bad, I’d forget what I was saying mid-sentence.”
Ultimately, this memoir kept me turning pages till the end as I hoped along with Ma that his relentless appeals to his supervisors would finally result in exoneration. I found it a great way of expanding my own reading list to include a topic not usually discussed in the classroom or in American society generally, yet was still such an important part of world history.
ISBN: 9780140159424
August 14, 2010
This is a true story of Ma Bo, a Red Guard who ransacked his own mother's house for writing a book that was considered anti-communist. Ma Bo raided homes and beat innocent victims. He was a brute who liked to fight in the name of Mao. He and three friends joined the army and trekked to the steppes of Inner Mongolia. He continued to beat a Mongolian nearly to death, just because...As Ma Bo continued to abuse, he carelessly spoke against a party leader, earning himself the name of an "active counterrevolutionary." For eight long years, Ma Bo suffered the abuse of the leaders and his former friends. He spent time in jail and in the company of three others like himself on the top of a mountain, cutting and hauling trees and boulders.
"Because of these stones we went hungry, we froze, we sweated, and we bled; we carried them on our backs, up against our bellies, and on our shoulders. We wore out a pair of shoes and a pair of leather pants every winter. The skin on our hands, on our backs, on our arms, even on our bellies was rubbed raw. Those stones exacted a terrible human toll. The song of youth for our generation."
"We grew old and ugly out there. Our hair turned white, our faces turned wrinkled and coarse. Those stones wore away the most precious years of our lives. Stained by our blood and our sweat, they were then abandoned to the untamed land, exposed to the elements until the blowing sand buried them forever."
Ma Bo spent months on the mountain alone in solitary confinement, filled with loneliness, close to becoming mad. He was tormented by the abandonment of his friends, his own mother, and the disillusionment of the leaders of the party who spoke the words of Mao, but lived their lives stealing and whoring. Never once, however, did Ma Bo give up on trying to clear his name. It's rare to read the memoir from the point of view of a Red Guard ...
"Because of these stones we went hungry, we froze, we sweated, and we bled; we carried them on our backs, up against our bellies, and on our shoulders. We wore out a pair of shoes and a pair of leather pants every winter. The skin on our hands, on our backs, on our arms, even on our bellies was rubbed raw. Those stones exacted a terrible human toll. The song of youth for our generation."
"We grew old and ugly out there. Our hair turned white, our faces turned wrinkled and coarse. Those stones wore away the most precious years of our lives. Stained by our blood and our sweat, they were then abandoned to the untamed land, exposed to the elements until the blowing sand buried them forever."
Ma Bo spent months on the mountain alone in solitary confinement, filled with loneliness, close to becoming mad. He was tormented by the abandonment of his friends, his own mother, and the disillusionment of the leaders of the party who spoke the words of Mao, but lived their lives stealing and whoring. Never once, however, did Ma Bo give up on trying to clear his name. It's rare to read the memoir from the point of view of a Red Guard ...
April 3, 2015
This book was so depressing in that I learned what these students experienced as part of Mao's Cultural Revolution. My son recommended it to me and I am glad that he did because I normally would not pick up a book like this. The story is compelling and horrifying. Just be glad we live in this country. I am giving it to my friend who teaches this subject because she can use excerpts from the book to let the students read about what students in China went through.
February 28, 2017
An incredible autobiographical tale, by a Chinese man who went from standard-bearer for the Chinese Communists, to enduring a nightmare of labor-camp, political re-education, etc. etc.etc. A grinding, enraging story. It's unbelievable what the Chinese have done to each other.
November 9, 2021
I read this book for a seminar on Cultural Revolution in 2013. Having grown up in China, I think this is a very realistic book. Also, I thought a lot about this book in 2013 and 2014. I think the girl this author loved might not get what he meant since each time he saw her he just froze. Fun fact it that the author’s best friend who he parted way with actually became the 4th richest person in China before he moved to Canada.
October 17, 2023
It was interesting to read about what life was like in another country. The first 100 or so pages were hard to get through but then it starts getting better.
February 20, 2009
This book took place from late 1968 to 1976. Ma Bo and a few friends, all students and Red Guards, decided to go up the mountains, and down to the valleys to be taught by the peasants, one of Chairman Mao's decrees. So they went to Inner Mongolia. After writing a letter in their own blood, they were finally assigned to the Seventh Regiment. One of the first things they did when they got there was to raid the home of a "herdowner"--a man who owned 18 sheep. They ransaked his house, killed his dog and beat the man up. He never resisted. When they were done with he smiled. He knew what would happen if he opposed the will of the people.
Ma Bo continues fighting and he falls in love, unrequited love, until he is branded an active counterrevolutionay, based on a few comments he made about the leadership of the regiment and about Mao's wife, and some issues involving a dog. He is imprisoned, then paraded to every regiment to be denounced in meetings where the people scream slogans at him, beat him, and force him to assume the airplane position for hours. He finds out that his best friend betrayed him and his mother diswons him once she finds out he has opposed the party. She is a writer and has her own political problems, once her best selling book was labeled a poisonous weed. Ma Bo is sentenced to 8 years of supervised labor. He never stops trying to get the verdict over turned and after many years, it is changed from him being a counterrevolutionary to having made serious politcal errors. He goes through horrendous conditions, man-made and natural during those years, and while he is enduring his trials, the eco-system of the steppe is being destroyed by the activities--construction, quarrying, agriculture--of the many regiments. Then the regiments leave and he decides to write his story. The book ends with him writing furiously as he is about to be sent back to Beijing.
Another look at the Cultural Revolution and the impact it had on the people--those who participated and those who just tried to endure. Many died. This is the first book I've read about what happened in Inner Mongolia. Ma Bo starts out cocky and very butal, but he changes by the end of the book. He has many soul searing experiences. I almost gave it 3 stars, because it drug a little, I started wishing it would hurry up and end. I enjoyed the writing style, he did a great job portraying the natural world, the work he did, what he suffered and the politcal and interpersonal interactions of the people he was with. I wish he would have talked about before and after the stay in Inner Mongolia. I think that would have set the book in context and made it more interesting. It was too much of the same, same fighting, same cursing, same drinking, same working and shirking work by the same people.
I did enjoy this book and I'm glad I read it.
Ma Bo continues fighting and he falls in love, unrequited love, until he is branded an active counterrevolutionay, based on a few comments he made about the leadership of the regiment and about Mao's wife, and some issues involving a dog. He is imprisoned, then paraded to every regiment to be denounced in meetings where the people scream slogans at him, beat him, and force him to assume the airplane position for hours. He finds out that his best friend betrayed him and his mother diswons him once she finds out he has opposed the party. She is a writer and has her own political problems, once her best selling book was labeled a poisonous weed. Ma Bo is sentenced to 8 years of supervised labor. He never stops trying to get the verdict over turned and after many years, it is changed from him being a counterrevolutionary to having made serious politcal errors. He goes through horrendous conditions, man-made and natural during those years, and while he is enduring his trials, the eco-system of the steppe is being destroyed by the activities--construction, quarrying, agriculture--of the many regiments. Then the regiments leave and he decides to write his story. The book ends with him writing furiously as he is about to be sent back to Beijing.
Another look at the Cultural Revolution and the impact it had on the people--those who participated and those who just tried to endure. Many died. This is the first book I've read about what happened in Inner Mongolia. Ma Bo starts out cocky and very butal, but he changes by the end of the book. He has many soul searing experiences. I almost gave it 3 stars, because it drug a little, I started wishing it would hurry up and end. I enjoyed the writing style, he did a great job portraying the natural world, the work he did, what he suffered and the politcal and interpersonal interactions of the people he was with. I wish he would have talked about before and after the stay in Inner Mongolia. I think that would have set the book in context and made it more interesting. It was too much of the same, same fighting, same cursing, same drinking, same working and shirking work by the same people.
I did enjoy this book and I'm glad I read it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2009
Although I liked the book, there were times when the coarse language and coarse lifestyle almost turned me away. But I was mesmerized by Ma Bo's story. Unlike other memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, Ma Bo picks up his story abruptly, giving no background into his life before he decided to go to Inner Mongolia. He ends his story just as abruptly. I think I would have liked some context for his story, but perhaps it works, since he finds himself with other students, former soldiers and Mongolian herdsman about whom he--and we--know nothing. His experience in Inner Mongolia is a floating island, out of context, which is perhaps an apt way of looking at it.
His story is a good illustration of the fervor and devotion and then the total disillusionment of many of China's young people during this time. He himself admits to brutality . . . but then suffers brutality at the hands of others. He does seem to have learned from his experience.
His story is a good illustration of the fervor and devotion and then the total disillusionment of many of China's young people during this time. He himself admits to brutality . . . but then suffers brutality at the hands of others. He does seem to have learned from his experience.
October 1, 2007
Entah kenapa, saya selalu tertarik dengan buku-buku sejarah yang diceritakan dalam narasi orang pertama. Rasanya lebih membumi. Buku ini menceritakan mengenai chinese cultural revolution melalui seorang Ma Bo. Dimana ia akhirnya harus dipaksa bekerja di pingiran Mongolia. Ma Bo akhirnya melarikan diri ke USA. Sungguh ironis, padahal buku ini dibuka dengan betapa bangganya anak-anak muda cina berfoto dengan buku merahnya di patung Chairman Mao.
January 12, 2015
Also by MaBo: blood and iron
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