Xiang Chengjian | Soul of Purgatory: Memories of a Survivor of the “Spark” Case in the Great Famine Era

In 1960, a group of rightist teachers and students from Lanzhou University, who were sent down to the rural areas of Tianshui, Gansu, experienced the Great Famine. They self-published the magazine “Spark”, exposing and criticizing the totalitarian rule that caused this catastrophe. When the first issue of “Spark” had not yet been sent out, and the second issue was still being edited, its participants were arrested and labeled as a counter-revolutionary group, with many later sentenced to heavy penalties or even executed. The first issue of “Spark” and more information about the “Spark Case” can be read here.

“Soul Returned from Purgatory – Memories of the Survivors of the ‘Spark Case’ in the Great Famine Era (1957-1981)” is the autobiography of Xiang Chengjian, a major participant in the “Spark” magazine. He and another student were responsible for printing the first issue of the magazine and contributed six articles to “Spark”. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the “Spark Case” and was not rehabilitated until the early 1980s.

This memoir is divided into three parts: upper, middle, and lower, with a total of thirteen chapters and over 350,000 characters. It records Xiang Chengjian’s experiences of being labeled a rightist and sent down for labor, his subsequent arrest and imprisonment for nineteen years due to “Spark”, and his struggle for rehabilitation and reconstruction of his personal life after his release. Scholar Ai Xiaoming commented on Xiang Chengjian’s memoir in the preface: “Xiang Chengjian’s memoir has important value for the study of the spiritual history of contemporary intellectuals. First, it is another testimony about the ‘Spark Case’ after Tan Chanxue’s ‘Seeking’, and is a historical document about this struggle. The author presents the social context before and after the case, and describes the heroic deeds of the ‘Spark’ comrades—a group of young, inexperienced thinkers challenging totalitarian autocracy. Second, it is a record of several labor camps in the west. The author describes his eighteen-year labor camp experience in Gansu, Qinghai and other places, unveiling the western scroll of the Chinese-style Gulag. Third, it is the spiritual history of a rebel. The author shows the pain and suffering he experienced and his life-and-death trials under the strong crushing of the state’s violent machine.”

The appendices of the book include six articles written by Xiang Chengjian for “Spark”, a deep report by journalist Jiang Xue about Xiang Chengjian, and a chronology of the “Spark” case compiled by Ai Xiaoming.