For a considerable period, the literature written by “Chinese quislings” (Hanjian) has been “an elephant in the room” carefully avoided by scholars of modern China. Among poet-politicians in Republican China, either quislings or patriots, Wang Jingwei (1883–1944) is still one of the most controversial. Most scholars don't want to openly talk and write about Wang because either they believe that Wang is too despicable to discuss, or they are too afraid to mention him for fear of touching a political taboo. Courageously, Zhiyi Yang's new book Poetry, History, Memory studies the life and poetry of Wang Jingwei and his pivotal roles in the politics and culture of Republican China, thus treading onto tricky territory in modern Chinese literature and history.
The introduction outlines the chapters and states its methodology, which sets up three quixotic “windmills” of history, poetry, and memory and convincingly argues that “Wang's lyric poetry, as...
