SOURCE: A review of Under the Red Flag, in The New York Times Book Review, January 11, 1998.

[In the following review, Bricklebank faults the "political exigencies" of the themes and Jin's narrative technique in Under the Red Flag.]

Dismount Fort is a country town ruled under the red flag of China's Cultural Revolution, a place where feudal custom has been further warped by the political dogma of a new social order. Ha Jin's dozen stories about Dismount Fort [in Under the Red Flag], which won the 1997 Flannery O'Connor Award, inform us that noble goals do not prevent many of these country people from scrambling for wealth, revenge and prestige, or from seeking the opportunity to address lingering resentments. In one story, an arrogant and miserly Communist finds that as small a thing as an accidentally smashed Mao button can lead to his downfall. In another, a widow who in...