Research Scholar at Yale Law School studying the history of science in China and US-China relations. Particle physicist by training. Writer at various places. Editor at Made in China Journal. Co-host of Dissident at the Doorstep.
Yangyang Cheng
Loading...
"For those of us who are spared the firsthand trauma of 1989, venturing into the forbidden is only the first step. Outside of China, Tiananmen is not at risk of being forgotten, but awareness does not equate to understanding."
How may novels honor the legacy of June 4? I write @chinabooksreview.com:
37 years after #June4, who gets to write about it, for whose consumption, and to what end? For @chinabooksreview.com, I examine Tiananmen in novels. The real question is not whether historical accuracy can give way to poetic license, but what truths are sought and revealed by the imaginary accounts.
"The class hierarchy that manifested during Tiananmen extends to its artistic remembrance...perhaps because only the relatively privileged can leave China and write from the safety of distance, where they must also speak in the language of Western liberalism to reach a broader audience."
My latest:
Read Yangyang Cheng's review-essay on Tiananmen in fiction: chinabooksreview.com/2026/06/04/t...
“We must rescue the truth of Tiananmen from the distortions of Orientalism, and interrogate the protesters’ demands beyond mere slogans.”
Tough. When imposed or psychological self censoring construe to diminish memory & history, survivors’ rationale/capacity for expression pushed to the outer limit
Sur les mémoires du massacre du 4 juin dans la fiction, en particulier dans la littérature, avec ce questionnement : "Il est facile de déclarer "ne jamais oublier" à un océan de distance, mais de quoi se souvient-on exactement ?"
Sometimes fiction is the only way a story can be remembered. I still remember going to China in '96 and the Americans I was with kept badgering our hosts about Tiananmen Sq, being totally clueless that the rooms were bugged and that they were putting our hosts lives at risk by asking them.
After 37 years, the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989 have been preserved in novels as much as in memory. But does the Anglophone literary imagination get it right?
chinabooksreview.com
After 37 years, the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989 have been preserved in novels as much as in memory. But does the Anglophone literary imagination get it right?
"The funniest possible outcome of the AI mandate era is about to be HR departments discovering that 'sincerely held religious belief' under Title VII has a much lower bar than they assumed, and Pope Leo handed every Catholic employee a written excuse" www.businessinsider.com/worker-got-r...
After 37 years, the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989 have been preserved in novels as much as in memory. But does the Anglophone literary imagination get it right?
"The class hierarchy that manifested during Tiananmen extends to its artistic remembrance...perhaps because only the relatively privileged can leave China and write from the safety of distance, where they must also speak in the language of Western liberalism to reach a broader audience."
My latest:
Noe_Gy 庭木
37 years after #June4, who gets to write about it, for whose consumption, and to what end? For @chinabooksreview.com, I examine Tiananmen in novels. The real question is not whether historical accuracy can give way to poetic license, but what truths are sought and revealed by the imaginary accounts.
37 years after #June4, who gets to write about it, for whose consumption, and to what end? For @chinabooksreview.com, I examine Tiananmen in novels. The real question is not whether historical accuracy can give way to poetic license, but what truths are sought and revealed by the imaginary accounts.
Paul Guinnessy
Pat
After 37 years, the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989 have been preserved in novels as much as in memory. But does the Anglophone literary imagination get it right?
After 37 years, the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989 have been preserved in novels as much as in memory. But does the Anglophone literary imagination get it right?
After 37 years, the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989 have been preserved in novels as much as in memory. But does the Anglophone literary imagination get it right?
