The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry since the Cultural Revolution Book

The collection was hit or miss. Her early stories, while of historical interest, were fairly poor. Her later stories in this collection were excellent. Stand outs include "Within the Folds of Seclusion," "Wooden Cradles," "A Leaf in the Whirlwind," "Come Back," "Fulfillment," and "Dhirendru Majumdar's Mother." The memoir portion of the collection was overwrought. Most of her mediations on the relationship between the writer and her craft were tiresome and excessively flowery. Besides highlighting the difficulty of simultaneously being a full-time writer and mother, it is unclear what this portion of the memoir adds to our understanding of the artistic process. The best part of her memoir, by far, was her elegy for her mother.

The political and social points she is making in this book were revolutionary for her time (and indeed, are most likely still revolutionary in most of India) but seem dated today. The ideals she states with such ethical clarity and moral force are ones we, by and large, accept as granted. It becomes difficult to relate to her fervor as it seems uncontroversial.