Boxer Rebellion - in Fiction

In Fiction

• Probably the first reference to the Boxer Rebellion was made in the Polish play The Wedding by Stanisław Wyspiański, first published on 16 March 1901, even before the rebellion was finally crushed. The character of Czepiec asks the Journalist (Dziennikarz) one of the best-known questions in the history of Polish literature: "Cóz tam, panie, w polityce? Chińczyki trzymają się mocno!? ("How are things in politics, Mister? Are the Chinese holding out firmly!?").
• G. A. Henty, With the Allies to Pekin, a Tale of the Relief of the Legations (New York: Scribners, 1903; London: Blackie, 1904). Juvenile fiction by a widely read author, depicting the Boxers as "a mob of ruffians".
• A falsified diary, Diary of his Excellency Ching-Shan: Being a Chinese Account of the Boxer Troubles, including text written by Edmund Backhouse, who said he recovered the document from a burnt building. It is suspected that Backhouse falsified the document, as well as other stories, because he was prone to tell tales dubious in nature, including claims of nightly visits to the Empress Dowager Cixi.
• The rebellion is mentioned in the Hergé Tintin story "The Blue Lotus" by Tintin's Chinese friend Chang Chong-Chen when they first meet after Tintin saves the boy from drowning. It is a pivotal and poignant moment relating to the views Chinese and European people had of each other at the time. The boy asks Tintin why he saved him from drowning as, according to Chang's uncle who fought in the Rebellion, all white people were wicked.
• The novel Moment In Peking (1939), by Lin Yutang, opens during the Boxer Rebellion, and provides a child's-eye view of the turmoil through the eyes of the protagonist.
• The Douglas Reeman novel The First to Land (New York, 1984), part of the Bluewood saga, depicts an officer of Royal Marines during the siege of Peking.
• The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (New York, 1996), by Neal Stephenson, includes a quasi-historical re-telling of the Boxer Rebellion as an integral component of the novel
• The novel The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (2003), by Adam Williams, describes the experiences of a small group of foreign missionaries, traders and railway engineers in a fictional town in northern China shortly before and during the Boxer Rebellion.
• The Last Empress (Boston, 2007), by Anchee Min, describes the long reign of the Empress Dowager Cixi in which the siege of the legations is one of the climactic events in the novel.
• In the videogame Bioshock Infinite, the fictional 'floating city' of Columbia was said to be involved in the Boxer rebellion by gunning down Chinese civilians.