Arnon Grunberg
Words Without Borders

Mao: The Novel

Jung Chang is the author of the worldwide bestseller, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.
I must admit that I have never read Wild Swans, maybe because of snobbery, maybe because of a lack of interest in China.
Now Jung Chang, together with her husband Jon Halliday, has written a biography on Mao, Mao: The Unknown Story. The book is filled with rather interesting details on Mao's private life: for example, that the inventor of the Cultural Revolution was fond of swimming, never brushed his teeth--so he ended up with black teeth--and had a more than morally acceptable appetite for torture.
But above all, this book is a list of Mao's crimes. It is 700 pages long. A very long list that is.
When I met the authors in the Ambassade Hotel in Amsterdam (for unknown reasons, this is the place where all authors stay when their Dutch publisher invites them to Amsterdam), I asked them if they had found an explanation for Mao's evil. They answered that his childhood was perfectly happy, and that they didn't want to justify his crimes.
Maybe it is impossible to make a distinction between an explanation and a justification. But this impossibility is a pity. (And by the way, I don’t think that explanations can be found only in the childhood of the victimizer).
Speaking of Sarte, who defended Mao’s violence as necessary, Mr. Halliday told me that there have always been and always will be philosophers and other intelligent people who simply can’t stop sympathizing with violence.
I’m afraid he is right.
In the meantime, I’m waiting for Mao: The Novel.


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