Book-burning Mao jailed my parents, so I know reading’s power
The author of Wild Swans has warned that the waning popularity of reading will "brutalise" society because she has already seen what happens when a nation gives up on books.
Jung Chang, whose family saga set across 20th-century China has sold 15 million copies, argued that books had a unique power to nurture empathy. Without them, she said, people risk losing a vital part of their humanity.
Chang was a teenager when Chairman Mao initiated the Cultural Revolution, during which millions of books were destroyed on his orders.
"Mao had a purpose when he called for books to be burnt, and when he said the more books you read, the more stupid you become," she said. "That was because not reading will make a person more easily brutalised."
She added: "Many people think reading their mobile will give them enough information on current affairs, but reading is more than that -- it’s about making you see a wider world and developing your soul. Reading can make you more human."
Chang, 73, has joined authors including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ian McEwan in backing The Sunday Times Get Britain Reading campaign (https://www.thetimes.com/uk/get-britain-reading/article/campaign-pledge-bookbanks-charity-donate-volunteer-xn768kfgx), which aims to reverse the steep decline in reading for pleasure.
Supporters can donate to Bookbanks, which puts books into the hands of those who need them most, volunteer to read in schools (https://www.thetimes.com/uk/get-britain-reading/article/why-volunteering-to-read-with-schoolchildren-is-such-a-joy-d9kv3fpgn) with Coram Beanstalk or simply pledge to read for fun for at least ten minutes a day for six weeks.
Jung Chang at The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival last month
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Chang published her second memoir, Fly, Wild Swans (https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/fly-wild-swans-jung-chang-extract-t6vp3cdd3), in September.
It follows on from Wild Swans, published in 1991, which tells the story of three generations of Chinese women: her grandmother, who had her feet bound and became a warlord’s concubine; her mother, a committed communist who was later sent to a labour camp; and Chang herself, who was exiled to a village in the foothills of the Himalayas as a teenager.
Before the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Chang’s father, a senior Chinese Communist Party official, had instilled a love of reading in his five children. "He had this great study, lined from floor to ceiling with books, and my siblings and I were allowed in only on certain occasions and we must wash our hands before we opened any books," she recalled.
"My father used all the family’s spare money to buy books, so I grew up regarding books as something almost sacred."
When Mao’s Great Leap Forward -- the disastrous industrialisation drive -- led to famine, Chang’s parents started to oppose Mao’s policies. They were branded "class enemies" and punished through public humiliation, torture and imprisonment.
Only a few officially sanctioned books were permitted, often shot through with Mao’s quotations, so when the Red Guards came, they carted off much of her father’s library to be burnt. He was ordered to destroy the rest himself.
"I think that was the moment that really broke him and he had a mental breakdown," Chang said. "Books make you less rigid in your thinking -- they expand your horizons, they make you see a wider world. Without them, you’re like a frog sitting at the bottom of a well, who thinks the sky is no bigger than the well’s mouth."
Deprived of literature, Chang’s yearning to read only deepened. "Without books, you can’t get hold of your own soul," she added. "Your life is much more pleasurable if you read."
Jung Chang at age six
A black market in banned titles soon emerged. Chang’s younger brother began trading books in secret, hiding them in an abandoned water tower or burying them, and stashing a small number under the family’s mattresses.
"He hid them ingeniously all over the place so I was able to read so many Chinese and foreign classics, which kept me sane and kept my mind nourished," she said. "My brother tore the covers off the ones in the house and replaced them with Selected Works of Mao Zedong. I was reading Sherlock Holmes under a Mao cover when the Red Guards came to raid the flat." She was about 16 at the time, and had to flush the first poem she had written down the lavatory to hide it from the guards.
Despite Wild Swans becoming one of the bestselling memoirs of the 20th century, it has never been adapted for film or TV. Chang said that studios fear offending Beijing (https://www.thetimes.com/topic/china).
"It’s been talked about for more than 30 years," she said. "At first, all these film directors and producers were terribly keen but at the last minute they were all stopped by the distributors, because the distributors are worried about their other films and that the Chinese government would go out of [its] way to punish them."
"When an author writes a book, it takes one brave publisher to stand up for that person -- but for a film to be made, millions have to be invested. That makes people cautious."
