Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution was a decade of political upheaval in China, launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasting until 1976. Framed as a campaign to purge old ideas and enforce revolutionary purity, it brought mass persecution: intellectuals and teachers were denounced at public struggle sessions, universities ceased normal teaching, families and colleagues were turned against one another, and many scholars and writers died or took their own lives. Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, begins in the middle of this period; its first chapter depicts a struggle session in Beijing, and the persecution of physicists during these years shapes the central characters, including the young astrophysicist Ye Wenjie, whose father is among the persecuted.