Chen Zhongshi's "White Deer Plain": Censored to Win Coveted Mao Dun Literary Prize

White Deer Plain, a newly launched movie based on Chen Zhongshi's novel of the same name (白鹿原, 陈忠实著), has aroused controversy both as a book and as a film. The novel tells the tale of two families, Bai and Lu, living through the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the beginning of the Republic and the rise of Communism in Shaanxi Province. It won the Mao Dun Literary Prize in 1997, but as documented in an article today (删改性写), not before the sensitive political content and sex scenes were appropriately trimmed. . .