March 10, 2008
Vol.23, No.08

An Evening with the Author
KANG ZHENGGUO
MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2008
As the author of Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China (1997), Kang Zhengguo has provided a picaresque and highly personal memoir of a writer's travails. Of Confessions, William Grimes reported in The New York Times, "[Kang] lives through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the thaw following Mao's death, the growing democracy movement of the 1980s and the crackdown after the protests in Tiananmen Square. [
] The great events are expressed in personal terms, and they are colored by Mr. Kang's unusual sensibility. [
] Simply as a documentary record of daily life in China, Confessions is a rewarding read, but Mr. Kang, a gifted stylist [
], has transmuted his struggles into a literary work of high distinction."
Kang Zhengguo currently teaches at Yale University, where he is Senior Lector in East Asian Languages and Literatures, a post he has held since 1994. He has published numerous articles and books in Chinese as well as English. These include Body and Desire (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2001), Fengsao yu yanqing: Chinese Classical Poetry by and about Women (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2001), and Chongshen fengyue jian: Sexuality and Literature in Traditional China (Taipei: Maitian, 1996). Kang has lectured widely in the United States, China, and Sweden on a broad range of subjects, including Chinese public policy, Chinese classical literature, and gender and cultural studies.
Kang Zhengguo's lecture is sponsored by the Gould Center.
Kang Zhengguo currently teaches at Yale University, where he is Senior Lector in East Asian Languages and Literatures, a post he has held since 1994. He has published numerous articles and books in Chinese as well as English. These include Body and Desire (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2001), Fengsao yu yanqing: Chinese Classical Poetry by and about Women (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2001), and Chongshen fengyue jian: Sexuality and Literature in Traditional China (Taipei: Maitian, 1996). Kang has lectured widely in the United States, China, and Sweden on a broad range of subjects, including Chinese public policy, Chinese classical literature, and gender and cultural studies.
Kang Zhengguo's lecture is sponsored by the Gould Center.