Under the Red Flag

Under the Red Flag is a collection of short stories by Ha Jin that won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. The stories depict life in China during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). This period in Chinese literature was heavily influenced by Mao Zedong's ideology, which dictated that literature should serve political purposes and be accessible to the masses. Writers were expected to adhere to Socialist Realism, portraying society as it should be rather than as it was. Ha Jin's work, written in plain English, often explores the tension between individual desires and societal duties, a common theme in Chinese literature of that era.12