Review: Washing History

Xu Huaizhong’s novel, That Which Can’t Be Washed Away, is a more recent engagement with the past. It was published in Chinese in 2019, titled 牵风记 (literally “diary of pulling the wind”), and won the prestigious Mao Dun prize that year. The book, translated by Haiwang Yuan and Will Spence, was released in English earlier this year by Sinoist Books, a specialist publisher in translated Chinese literature whose mission is “adding nuance and dimension to the discussions that go on in English about the Chinese-speaking world,” according to chief publisher Wang Ying Mathieson. The book takes place during the Chinese Civil War, and its main characters are fictionalized and flawed CCP fighters. The novel follows two soldiers as they create, preserve and contend with their memories of the war, both in real time and in retrospect.

Read the whole article via China Books Review here.