In the year that marks the 20^th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Xujun Eberlein’s Apologies Forthcoming could not be more pointedly named or apposite in theme.

The collection of short stories is a maddening and deeply touching remembrance of the Cultural Revolution at a human level. With subtle political censure, Eberlein brings to life characters that draw out the helplessness, hope and heartache of the people who lived through the decade and its long, awful aftermath.

The author has a way of delivering pathos that leaves a pang in the chest. In the first tale, ‘Men Don’t Apologize’, is a line that captures the book’s essence:

Ou Hong’s mother had died shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution. As if she could not manage the tremendous relief of waking up from a decade-long nightmare, her nerves just snapped like a string drawn too taut.

Through simple prose, Eberlein weaves authority. A Chongqing native who survived the Revolution to earn a PhD at M.I.T. and settle in Massachusetts, the author is present in each story. “I was here,” she is saying, “I know what I’m talking about.” Her stories are noticeably peopled with defiant women, who work as engineers and battle the dual taboos of love and sex.

But, with originality and strength, Eberlein gives voice to a variety of characters, in a range of times and settings. In one story, a poet gingerly rediscovers his craft in 1980s Chengdu; in another, a ten year old child protects her grandmother from news that her sister, a Red Guard at the height of the unrest, drowned in the Jialing river; in a third, a software programmer seeks a job in Boston in the wake of 9/11, and encounters an old enemy from his days as a revolutionary.

This last story, which sets two veterans of the Cultural Revolution against the onset of America’s latest, much trumpeted war for democracy, is particularly arresting. It reminds that of China’s too recent tragedy, the world remains relatively ignorant, because without the handful of expatriate authors like Eberlein, its people are silent.

Published by Blacksmith Books