Dusty Years

A painful history of the Cultural Revolution! "The Dusty Years" is a memoir by the author Mr. Shi Yanping. The content is divided into five parts: the first part is "the teenage years when wars were everywhere", the second part is "the ups and downs of Shanghai literary world", the third part is "recalling "Zhaoxia", the ups and downs", the fourth part is "the vicissitudes of life in Beijing", and the fifth part is "settling down and finding a happy destination". The main body of this book is the memories of literary events from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, and the experience of domestic and foreign literary development and exchanges since the reform and opening up. Brush away the dust of the years, and you can see the mental journey of an octogenarian. In his early years, the author was a young writer and professional editor of the Shanghai Writers Association, and was cultivated by Ba Jin under the arrangement of the organization. In the 1970s, he was appointed as one of the directors of the famous literary journal "Zhaoxia" in Shanghai. In 1976, he was transferred to Beijing as the executive deputy editor of the re-published "People's Literature". He is very knowledgeable and his records have first-hand historical documentary value, and his magnanimity also makes the narrative in this book highly credible. Therefore, Professor Wu Jun wrote in the preface to this book: "I regard him (note: referring to the author) as a special type of historical figure, a 'silent minority.' As people who engage in academic research, we have experienced too many divergent historical events and evaluations of figures. This change is constantly reconstructing our historical cognition. In fact, it is also explaining the current situation." We can certainly not reverse the grand historical logic, but we can carefully separate the individual's life trajectory from the logic of history, distinguish the good or bad deeds in it, and fully understand the weaknesses of human nature while paying more attention to the good qualities in human nature. It is this kind of good and evil that constitutes the direction and appearance of history."