Ji Xianlin (1911–2009) was born in the flatlands of Shandong Province shortly before the fall of the Qing dynasty. Educated in Germany in the 1930s, he returned to China after World War II to co-chair the Eastern Languages Department at Peking University. Renowned for his scholarship in Sanskrit and Pali, Ji was also a prominent essayist and public intellectual. Former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao regarded him as a mentor and visited him frequently during his later years.

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The Cowshed by Ji Xianlin

The Cowshed | Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Ji Xianlin recounts the authors imprisonment and struggle during the Cultural Revolution in China. The book is the author’s harrowing account of his imprisonment in 1968 on the campus of Peking University and his subsequent disillusionment with the cult of Mao.