ABSTRACT
Although some of Zhang Xianliang's novels are strictly contemporary in setting and have no connection with prison life, his best-known fiction portrays a semi-autobiographical protagonist whose memories of arduous stints in Mao-era prison camps frequently come back to absorb him in his later years of relative freedom. Far from serving simply as a bitter indictment of the regime that for no good reason made him languish some 20 years ;n the camps, Zhang Xianliang's fiction lays more emphasis on the emotional and intellectual reconstruction of a personality shattered by two decades of politically motivated imprisonment beginning in early manhood. This process of emotional and intellectual reintegration never achieves final closure but moves forward owing to his protagonists' powers of memory and observation, their ability to recall and apply their broad grounding in Chinese and Western literary and philosophical classics, and their tenacity in adapting to harsh or unfamiliar circumstances in and out of the camps.
