Su Xiaokang

A Memoir of Misfortune by Xiaokang Su who is a Chinese journalist in exile in the States because of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, depicts a tragic situation in his life. A disastrous car accident happened to Su’s family and put his wife in a coma for a long time. Besides telling his desperate efforts to help with his wife, the memoir goes deep into the author’s inner world. The reader understands Su’s guilty feelings for his wife’s paralysis and his ironic thought about his controversial documentary River Elegy, which, in fact, was popular and thought-provoking during the post-Mao era, as well as his point of view about China’s system. It’s too bad that the author buried himself too much in the misfortune, unable to break down the language and culture barriers in his new country.… (more)