Awards

• Long-listed for Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction 2023
• Long-listed for Cundill History Prize 2023
• Short-listed for Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction 2023
• Short-listed for Cundill History Prize 2023
• Short-listed for Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction 2023

Overview

“It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution,” Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children turned on parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized, and imprisoned. Yet in China this brutal and turbulent period exists, for the most part, as an absence; official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia. Red Memory uncovers forty years of silence through the stories of individuals who lived through the madness. Deftly exploring how this era defined a generation and continues to impact China today, Branigan asks: What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited, or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?

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9781324051954

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Reviews

It feels as if Joan Didion turned her powers of observation on China. -- Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author of Age of Ambition and Wildland [H]er prose simply took my breath away. -- Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy and Eat the Buddha Branigan offers nuanced, humane portraits of people whose lives were transformed by those years, and also teaches the reader much about the politics of memory. -- Hari Kunzru, author of Red Pill Unfailingly acute, exceptionally humane-a masterpiece. -- Julia Lovell, author of Maoism [A] haunting, vivid account of the human legacy and continuing impact of devastating events that, notwithstanding our preference for forgetting, happened practically yesterday.....[A] breathtaking work that hasn't left my mind since I finished reading it. -- Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks Without understanding the Cultural Revolution and its long-term influence, it is impossible to understand today's China. I hope all China experts, policymakers, think tankers, and the public perceive this and read Red Memory. -- Peidong Sun, author of the forthcoming Underground Epistemologies [E]xceptional... offers insights at once deep and clear into universal and timeless questions - of memory and forgetting, of horror and what it takes both to survive it and inflict it. It is haunting, evocative, and written with an almost painful beauty. I cannot recommend it too highly. -- Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist A veritable masterwork, Red Memory proves that that which has been forcibly buried, forgotten, and erased remains ever relevant to not just our understanding of history and of China, but to the human condition the world over. -- Qian Julie Wang, author of Beautiful Country A beautifully written and revelatory account of how the unquiet ghosts of the Cultural Revolution haunt China today, Red Memory will tell you more about Xi Jinping's rule than any tome on economics. -- Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis

"""What makes Branigan’s account special is captured in a line at the end of her work: ‘This book could not be written if I were to begin it today’…. Amid the growing difficulties of accessing lived experiences in China, Branigan’s lyrical style of writing lends itself well to intimate encounters with interviewees.… Her humanising approach to writing about China is particularly valuable amid our current polarising geopolitical narrative, which loves strong lines between enemies and allies. It is also appropriate for capturing a decade in which the line between hunter and hunted shifted with the political winds of the day."" -- Yuan Yang - Financial Times ""Compelling …. Red Memory is also an exercise in attempting the impossible, of trying to reconstruct what it was like to live through and then live with one of the most brutal periods of modern Chinese history. Branigan comes closer to doing so than anyone else has in the English language."" -- Emily Feng - NPR ""This book is thoroughly deserving of prominence. It is complex … because so is China."" -- Max Hastings - Sunday Times ""[A] penetrating study of the buried stories of the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976."" -- Isabel Hinton - Prospect ""This is a beautifully written and thought-provoking book."" -- Yuan Yi Zhu - The Times ""Branigan’s book is investigative journalism at its best, its hard-won access eliciting deep insight. The result is a survey of China’s invisible scars that makes essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand the nation today."" -- Marina Benjamin - Guardian ""Tania Branigan’s prose is masterful and crystalline. It feels as if Joan Didion turned her powers of observation on China. Red Memory is the kind of book capable of altering your understanding of an unforgettable episode that is not a strange artifact of history but, rather, an urgent warning about our deepest, most durable frailties."" -- Evan Osnos, National Book Award–winning author of Age of Ambition and Wildland ""Red Memory shows how the psychic wounds of Mao Zedong’s decade of madness endure to this day, replicating themselves through the generations."" -- Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy and Eat the Buddha ""Tania Branigan offers nuanced, humane portraits of people whose lives were transformed by those years, and also teaches the reader much about the politics of memory."" -- Hari Kunzru, author of Red Pill ""Without understanding the Cultural Revolution and its long-term influence, it is impossible to understand today’s China. I hope that all China experts, policymakers, think tankers, and the public perceive this and read Red Memory."" -- Peidong Sun, associate professor of history, Cornell University ""[E]xceptional… offers insights at once deep and clear into universal and timeless questions - of memory and forgetting, of horror and what it takes both to survive it and inflict it. It is haunting, evocative, and written with an almost painful beauty. I cannot recommend it too highly."" -- Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist ""Unfailingly acute, exceptionally humane—a masterpiece."" -- Julia Lovell, author of Maoism ""A veritable masterwork."" -- Qian Julie Wang, author of Beautiful Country ""Red Memory will tell you more about Xi Jinping’s rule than any tome on economics."" -- Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis ""A breathtaking work."" -- Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks ""Tania Branigan’s ability to weave personal stories into their political context brings a complex story to life. This is a masterclass in storytelling and journalism."" -- Gary Younge, author of Another Day in the Death of America ""A visceral history of the Cultural Revolution and a probing look at how modern-day Chinese Communist Party has sought to erase this chapter from its past…This is essential reading for China watchers."" -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""[Branigan delivers] poignant, engaging stories that reveal the deep scars left by the Cultural Revolution.…Across a beautifully rendered text, the author astutely examines the Maoist ideology that drove the tumultuous class struggle and destruction…. Sensitive [and] well-researched."" -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ""Branigan weaves fascinating, unbelievable, and often terrifying personal narratives into her analysis. Her deep insight into a nation's painted-over trauma explains how mass hysteria, rampant betrayal, and even cannibalism have shattered a society for generations afterwards."" -- Booklist"

Author Information

Tania Branigan writes editorials for the Guardian and spent seven years as its China correspondent, reporting on politics, the economy, and social changes. Her work has also appeared in the Washington Post. Red Memory is her first book. She lives in London.

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