Tania Branigan’s Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution has won the 2023 Cundill History Prize, given annually to a “book that embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality, and broad appeal.”
The book, published in May by Norton, explores the lingering effects of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution on the lives of Chinese citizens. In a starred review, a Kirkus critic called the book—a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the Baillie Gifford Prize—“a heartbreaking, revelatory evocation of ‘the decade that cleaved modern China in two.’”
Philippa Levine, the chair of the Cundill Prize jury, said, “Haunting and memorable, Tania Branigan’s sensitive study of the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the lives and psyches of an entire generation in China affected every juror, as it will every reader. All of us found ourselves unable to stop thinking about this extraordinary book. All of us were deeply moved by the trauma she so vividly describes and by the skills on which she drew in doing so. This is a must-read.”
The Cundill History Prize, presented by McGill University in Montreal, was established in 2008, and comes with a cash prize of $75,000. Previous winners include Anne Applebaum for Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 and Tiya Miles for All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
