Looking at chrysanthemums
Chinese Literature Magazine 1955
Chinese Literature just didn’t concentrate on works of art created in China but also promoted such art created in the capitalist west which was considered of international merit. A common misconception amongst many in the west was that the Cultural Revolution (which started in 1966) was against any such art. This was not the case. The Cultural Revolution argued that to maintain its independence and to create a new type of Socialist Art People’s China had to ensure that there wasn’t a subservient attitude towards what had been created in the west in the past and that there was always the danger of local art being swamped by the banality of capitalist culture.
The restoration of capitalism in China after the death of Chairman Mao in 1976 has shown the truth and wisdom of such an approach. Once capitalist culture is encouraged in a country it spreads like a virus, in its wake undermining and destroying indigenous culture, substituting the individual for the collective and leading to the creation of an homogenised and unimaginative culture, pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Chinese Literature: Introduction, 1951 (missing), 1952 (missing), 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 (missing), 1960 (missing), 1961, 1962 (missing), 1963, 1964, 1965 (missing), 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981.
Chinese Literature – 1955 – No 1
Contents include:
Short stories from new Chinese writers
Tales from the Sung and Yuan Dynasties
Cultural events – news about recent developments in the cultural sphere
Chinese Literature – 1955 – No 2
Contents include:
Tu Fu (a poet of the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century) – Lover of his people
Poems of Tu Fu
Cultural Events – developments in the cultural field
