Wolf Totem

Wolf Totem is a semi-autobiographical novel by Chinese author Lu Jiamin, first published in 2004 under the pen name Jiang Rong. It centers around a young student from Beijing who finds himself sent to the countryside of Inner Mongolia in 1967 as part of China’s Cultural Revolution, where countless citizens seen as “elite” were forced to become farmers in remote communities. Exploring themes of a man rediscovering nature, Chinese folk traditions, and the value of freedom and independence, Wolf Totem was controversial upon its release for its political leanings, as well as for its celebration of an animal that many Mongolians view as the biggest threat to their livelihoods. The author did not reveal himself until years after publication and had no role in promoting the book, but it nonetheless became a massive bestseller in China. It won multiple awards, including the first Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007. There have been multiple sequels published by different authors, but the original author has denounced them. Wolf Totem was adapted into a 2015 French-Chinese co-production by French director Jean-Jacques Annaud. It is also being developed as an animated feature by The Lion King director Rob Minkoff.

Wolf Totem begins as Chen Zhen, a cultured university student from Beijing, finds himself thrown completely out of his depth. He’s been removed from his comfortable college life and has been sent to the brutal, natural setting of the Olonbulag - the massive, inhospitable Mongolian grassland where he’s been sent to work off the land as part of the “Back to the Land” movement of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. It’s only thanks to the help of an old Mongol herdsman named Bilgee - translated as “Wise One” in the native tongue - that he learns to survive in this new environment and feel at home in the vast, unspoiled prairie. Although the wolves that prey on the sheep in the region are feared by all shepherds, Chen develops a respect and fascination for these ruling predators.

As he watches the wolves roam the fields, he observes that they seem to possess an almost human intelligence and a powerful spiritual identity. He listens to the stories the Mongols tell of their struggles and their joys and learns the secrets of the grassland from them. The Mongols tend to regard their land as a massive living organism and as a manifestation of the eternal spirit of Tengger, the realm known as the Mongol heaven. Chen learns to fight the wolves as they threaten the sheep, cattle, and horses he has to protect, but he also comes to view the wolves as a vital part of the ecosystem. They preserve the natural balance of the grassland and shape the way the Mongols live their lives.



However, as Chen slowly starts to feel at home in the Olonbulag, learning from its harsh climate and life cycle, the area comes under attack from a force far more dangerous than the wolves. The Cultural Revolution continues its mission to transform China and its far-flung territories, and it has no patience for anything but its human, secular, modern values. The arrogant, ruthless party official Bao Shungui comes to Mongolia to carry out the party’s radical policy of exterminating the native wolf population, and troops immediately begin driving the wolves out of the region, killing mass numbers. This is the beginning of a drama of survival, as an ancient world clashes with a modern world determined to destroy it. Man goes to war with animals that were here long before them, and Chen is desperate to learn all he can about an ancient way of life before it is forcibly disappeared by the government.

As a last-ditch attempt to bridge the gap between the wild and the civilized, Chen captures an orphaned wolf cub that he then raises, with the hope of breeding it with domestic dogs. Naming it Little Wolf, he forms a close bond with the wild animal and they become each other’s anchor in a rapidly changing China. However, despite Chen’s efforts to bond with his young wolf, the wolf is not meant to be domesticated, and it cries out for its lost mother, even injuring itself with how hard it howls. Ultimately, the bond between young man and wolf cub is destined to be broken, as the march of progress comes ever closer to destroying the ancient Mongol way of life.

Lu Jiamin is a Chinese author and activist, best known for his anonymously written bestseller Wolf Totem. As a college student, he spent eleven years in Inner Mongolia as a volunteer so that he would have more freedom to read, as opposed to possibly being drafted into the army. A longtime political activist and advocate for a freer China, he was arrested at the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and remains an active political and cultural critic in modern China.