The making and remaking of China's "red classics"

Rosemary A. Roberts, Li Li

"The Making and Remaking of China's 'Red Classics' is the first full-length work to bring together research on the 'red classics' across the entire Maoist period through to the reform era. It covers a representative range of genres including novels, short stories, films, TV series, picture books, animation, and traditional-style paintings. Collectively, the chapters offer a panoramic view of the production and reception of the original 'red classics' and the adaptations and remakes of such works after the Cultural Revolution. The contributors present fascinating stories of how a work came to be regarded as, or failed to become, a 'red classic.' There has never been a single answer to the question of what counts as a 'red classic'; artists had to negotiate the changing political circumstances and adopt the correct artistic technique to bring out the authentic image of the people, while...