Baptism by Yang Jiang

The characters in this vivid, witty, and engrossing novel, set in a Beijing literary institute right after the revolution, are a group of intellectuals from the old society adjusting to a new reality. There is a love story, intrigue, back-biting, and deception familiar circumstances of academic life. But in the end, all must undergo the harrowing ordeal of public confession in the first great purge of the 1950s.