Scar literature

Scar literature is a Chinese literary movement that emerged in the late 1970s, depicting suffering and trauma caused by the Cultural Revolution.

Cultural Revolution: A political movement in China from 1966 to 1976 that caused widespread persecution and social upheaval. The movement’s stories exposed the suffering and trauma this upheaval inflicted.
The Scar: A 1978 short story by Lu Xinhua about a young woman whose family is torn apart by political persecution. Its title gave the movement its name and its central image of lasting injury.
Lu Xinhua: A Chinese writer whose story “The Scar” became a landmark of late-1970s scar literature. His story supplied the movement with its defining metaphor.
Trauma fiction: Fiction that represents psychological injury and its effects on individuals and communities. Scar literature uses personal trauma to narrate collective political damage.
Misty poetry: A Chinese poetry movement of the late 1970s and 1980s known for ambiguity and individual expression. It shared the era’s turn toward personal voice but worked through poetic ambiguity.
Boluan Fanzheng: A period of political rehabilitation and policy reversal in China after Mao Zedong’s death. Its reassessment of the recent past helped create space for scar literature.
The Class Teacher: A 1977 novella by Liu Xinwu about a schoolteacher confronting the damage left by the Cultural Revolution. It is an early work that exposed harm to education and young people.
Liu Xinwu: A Chinese writer whose novella “The Class Teacher” appeared in 1977. His early fiction brought the movement’s themes into schools and youth culture.
Cultural Revolution sent-down youth: Urban young people sent to rural areas under a Chinese political campaign beginning in the late 1960s. Their disrupted lives and return to cities became recurring sources of remembered injury.
Roots-seeking literature: A Chinese literary movement of the 1980s that explored cultural traditions and regional identities. It shifted attention from recent political wounds toward deeper cultural origins.

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