Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9780745650807
Year: 2011
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (UK)
Pages: 240


Description:
In 1974 Roland Barthes travelled in China as part of a small
delegation of distinguished French philosophers and literary
figures. They arrived in China just as the last stage of the
Cultural Revolution was getting underway - the campaign to
criticize Lin Biao and Confucius. While they were welcomed by
writers and academics, the travelers were required to follow a
pre-established itinerary, visiting factories and construction
sites, frequenting shows and restaurants that were the mainstay of
Western visitors to China in the 70s.

Barthes planned to return from the trip with a book on China: the
book never materialized, but he kept the diary notes he wrote at
the time. The notes on things seen, smelled and heard alternate
with reflections and remarks - meditations, critiques or notes of
sympathy, an aside from the surrounding world. Published now for
the first time more than thirty years after the trip, these
notebooks offer a unique portrait of China at a time of turbulence
and change, seen through the eyes of the world?s greatest
semiotician.