Sally Rippin,
Chenxi and the Foreigner
Text Publishing (Australia), 2008.

Ages 12+

Set mostly in Shanghai at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Sally Rippin’s bold and sensitive Chenxi and the Foreigner pulls no punches in its account of a repressive Chinese political environment and the terrible consequences for young Chinese artists who resist the repression. As events unfold, readers are given an unblinking look at the price one young Chinese pays for trying to help an ignorant and innocent young Australian girl, Anna, whose naiveté unwittingly puts him and his friends in harm’s way. But Anna is no stereotype; by the end of the book - a deeply felt love story as well as a political exposé and a study of artistic freedom - Anna has learned profound lessons from her grief and ardor. Her time in Shanghai was a rite of passage into the complexities and perplexities of artistic and personal expression.

Chenxi and the Foreigner was written over a period of years, finished in 1997, and originally published in Australia in 2002. For this 2008 edition by another publisher, Rippin had the opportunity to revise the text considerably. As she explains in an Afterword, “…as a young and inexperienced writer, I had been afraid of my readership,” especially parents, teachers and librarians. She compromised the first version through her own self-censoring, “which is ironic given that this is a novel about artistic freedom.” The swear words, sex scenes and Chinese politics that she didn’t feel brave enough to address then are all frankly and appropriately present in the new version.

But her title, which remains unchanged, suggests that Sally Rippin’s courage as an author isn’t altogether new. A lesser writer might have titled the book “Anna and the Chinese Artist,” but Rippin understood from the beginning that the main character in her story is not Anna, through whose eyes the narrative is primarily told, but Chenxi, to whom Anna is “the foreigner.”

In Australia there is much crossover between young adult and adult fiction, and this novel is a good example of why that’s the case. While the second edition is again targeted at Rippin’s loyal teen readership, it condescends not an iota to their youth. The Shanghai she knew when she lived and studied art there (still a teenager herself when she arrived) no longer exists. However, through her visual intelligence and strong writing, Sally Rippin brings the city alive again, and with it an era and concerns we all need to remember and understand.