Roland Barthes and the Chinese wall

Abstract

In 1974, Roland Barthes and an intellectual group linked to the French magazine Tel Quel visit China of Mao Zedong. During the three weeks he spent in the country, Barthes takes note of everything he sees and hears, as well as what he thinks and feels. These notes became public in 2009 with the publication in France of his Travels in China showing a bored writer, imprisoned by the political discourse that sterilizes the literary writing. Unlike his fellows, who stand for or against the Maoist regime in books and articles published when they return to France, Barthes writes a short and entirely neutral text, “So, what about China?”, a reflection on the pale colors he saw and the weak tea he tasted, disengaging from what for him was the real trap, the polarity that fixes oneself in a crystallized position for or against, forcing a political commitment in the name of a doxa. This article tells the story of that journey and analyzes the barthesian texts originated from it, wondering about the relationship between Barthes and the foreign country.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2017n43a745.