"The title piece of this collection was an immediate sensation when it was published in China in September 1979. an outstanding example of 'reportage', or fictionalized social analysis, 'People or Monsters?' is a story of the corruption of an entire commune in a small county of the remote Heilongjiang Province of northeastern China. There female candre by the name of Wang Shouxin gained control of the commune and ran it for her personal benefit. While many in China were scandalized by Liu's expose, many more saw in it a microcosm of Chinese society."--Page 4 of cover.