A Little Tiger in the Chinese Night: An Autobiography in Art

Christine Linge MacDonald is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

Through words and illustrations, Song Nan Zhang recounts his life in
China during the last half-century, from his idyllic childhood in
Shanghai to his recent emigration to Canada. Sixteen vibrant paintings
and several black-and-white illustrations make up almost half of the
volume, an elegant illumination of the text by an expert painter who was
the assistant director of the Central Institute of Fine Arts in Beijing.

The cover shows Zhang as a boy pointing to the little wild tiger that
appeared three times near his cottage, surely a sign of good luck. Both
arresting and magical, this painting is an excellent example of the
artist’s facility with facial expression and his skill at capturing
the mood of physical settings. The incident is Zhang’s earliest
memory, to which he comes full circle at the book’s conclusion, when
he asks himself if his life has been lucky. The reader, enveloped in the
author’s life by his powerful art and clear, friendly words, feels
compelled to weigh this question carefully.

Unfortunately, many of the images in the book depict unhappy events
suffered by the author, the son of a capitalist. However, the tone of
the text is never self-pitying, and Zhang attempts to present the facts
dispassionately. The timeline and maps help place his life in historical
context. This autobiography will help the young reader to see the human
dimension of giant, mysterious China, keeping in mind that this is one
life out of a billion. Highly recommended.