A Hundred Flowers: How Literature Shaped Maoism

How do you write a political campaign? In the spring of 1957, China was in bloom. Flowers decorated literature, prose, the margins of newspapers and magazines, the covers of notebooks, and the stages from which politicians spoke. Floral designs were in vogue in fashion and in architecture. Flower Power tells the story of the Hundred Flowers, how they spread to become a national movement, and how they transformed into “poisonous weeds” during the Anti-Rightist campaign. It provides a vision of Maoism shaped by literary practice and circulation, and authored by creative writers across the political spectrum. Flower Power follows the words and lives of the writers who created the movement, their fate during 1957, and the lasting impact of the words they left behind. Exposing the dynamism, nuance, and literary energy of ostensibly official discourse, Flower Power shows that individual agency and creativity were central constitutive forces in Maoism.