RED BISHOP

A historical novel focuses on the last Anglican bishop in China.

In his book, Yuan tells the story of his grandfather Robin Chen, the last presiding bishop of the Anglican Church in China. The author charts Chen’s intricate journey, ranging from his early childhood years and his conversion to Christianity as a schoolboy at an Anglican missionary school to his death under house arrest decades later. Using a vast amount of primary documentation, Yuan seeks to provide a more accurate and nuanced picture of the Cultural Revolution than the version found in propaganda periodicals of the time disseminating “idyllic pictures of a communal utopia with caring barefoot doctors, smiling farmers, and singing factory workers.” The author lightly dramatizes the lives and struggles of his ancestors, predominantly Chen, whose peaceful and optimistic personality Yuan depicts perfectly throughout the poignant book. Equally well captured is the broader, changing world of 20th-century China, where Chen becomes a Christian leader in an avowedly atheist country. When he’s wretched and oppressed, his faith never wavers, and when the government changes and he’s suddenly valued (given a car and driver, a private phone in his home, health insurance, and—most importantly—extra coal for the winter), he uses his own money to allow poor children to go to school. Chen’s travels in the service of both church and state are rendered in vivid detail. Although Yuan reminds his readers in a postscript that he’s writing fiction, the book gives the strong impression of being the best biography Chen will ever get. The novel’s blending of personalities and the seething politics of 20th-century China is seamlessly done, and its heroic portrait of its central character is always admiring but never saccharine.

A detailed and moving tale about a heroic bishop in atheist China.