Song of Youth

Song of Youth (Simplified Chinese Character: 《青春之歌》) is a novel created by Chinese contemporary writer Yang Mo, published in 1958. This book is a semi-autobiographical novel written based on her own experience. The novel takes place during the patriotic student movement from the Mukden Incident (Simplified Chinese Character: 九一八事变) through to the December 9th Movement (Simplified Chinese Character: 一二·九运动), which occurred during the Japanese invasion of China in the 1937 as the background. The novel constructs a classic narrative of revolutionary history through the growth story of the heroine Lin Daojing. Background and creation process Yang Mo created Lin Daojing as the protagonist based on her personal life experience. Before joining the revolution, Lin Daojing's life experience is basically that of the author; and after joining the revolution, the thing she goes through is the summary of the experience of many revolutionaries. The author's family is similar to the feudal landlord family where Lin Daojing is born. When Yang Mo was young, she came into contact with some revolutionary comrades who had received Marxist–Leninist education and therefore hated the dark decayed of her family. She could not tolerate the selfishness, cruelty, hypocrisy and vileness of the landlord class. After finishing middle school, the author broke up with her family. She went through a lot of hard times such as out of school and out of work. Suffering from years of hard war also led to her frailty and illness, but she preserved with tenacity and wrote the first draft of Song of Youth during 1950–1952. Song of Youth earned Yang Mo great prestige and honor, Yang Mo continued to absorb some comments from readers, and took three months to make another revision and add eleven chapters. The novel accumulated more than 400,000 works and was reprinted in 1960. Content summary Lin Daojing is a high school student in Beiping. One autumn morning in the early 1930s, she boards a train from Beiping to Beidaihe. She is a beautiful, quiet, and hesitant girl who is plainly dressed and carries musical instrument in her arms. She just runs away from home. Lin Daojing is born into a large landowning family, her father is a university principal who has fame and wealth. Her mother is the daughter of a sharecropper. After giving birth to Lin Daojing, her mother is kicked out of the family and dies shortly.