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“Looking Beyond” the Iron Curtain

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Lin Yutang and China’s Search for Modern Rebirth

Part of the book series: Canon and World Literature ((CAWOLI))

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Abstract

This chapter covers Lin Yutang’s life and works from 1954 to 1965 during which Lin resided in the “Free World” (Singapore, Cannes, and New York) and found himself again critiquing the “double dangers” of a “Pax Americana” and the Communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain. In Looking Beyond, Lin offered an outline of a philosophy of world peace in the form of a fictional utopian tale with scathing satire on the real world under “Pax Americana.” His short but traumatic experience as Chancellor of Nanyang University in Singapore brought him back to the real world under the threat of the Communist dictatorship worldwide, which Lin again took up his cudgel to fight against this more immediate malaise, only to find some solace and strength in rediscovering the power of Jesus Christ.

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Correspondence to Suoqiao Qian .

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Qian, S. (2017). “Looking Beyond” the Iron Curtain. In: Lin Yutang and China’s Search for Modern Rebirth. Canon and World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4657-5_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4657-5_11

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-4656-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-4657-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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