Revolution in the Rainforest: Hunger and the Ghost of a Nation-to-Come

Journal of Integrated Cultural Studies

JICS   Vol. 1, No. 1, 2026, pp.172-184.

Print ISSN: 3105-840X; Online ISSN: 3105-8418

Journal homepage: https://www.icsjournal.com

DOI：Https://doi.org/10.64058/JICS.26.1.16

雨林中的革命：饥饿和未来国家的幽灵

安一多（An Yiduo）

摘要：金枝芒的长篇小说《饥饿》以马来亚共产党游击队在热带雨林中的极端生存经验为书写核心，通过对“饥饿”状态的细腻描摹，揭示革命身体的极限体验及其深层政治寓意。本文首先考察小说开篇如“烈士名单”般的人物表，继而聚焦三类关键角色——叛徒、死者与婴儿——论证小说如何借助其命运折射革命理想与肉身求生之间的张力。在马来亚独立的历史语境中，小说结尾的“反高潮”书写映射出革命话语在新国家框架下的错位。本文认为，饥饿体验既是对英国殖民压迫的反击，也成为检视国家建设梦想中困境的切入点。小说在理想与现实的裂隙中勾勒出对未来“国家之幽灵”的预言式想象，构成了一种在合法性危机下维系主体尊严的叙事实践。

关键词：《饥饿》；金枝芒；马共书写；革命文学

作者简介：安一多，南洋理工大学中文系博士生，研究方向：马华文学。电邮：YIDUO001@e.ntu.edu.sg。

Title: Revolution in the Rainforest: Hunger and the Ghost of a Nation-to-Come

Abstract: Jin Zhimang’s novel Hunger centers on the extreme survival experiences of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) guerrillas in the tropical rainforest. Through its nuanced portrayal of “hunger”, the novel brings into view the extremity of the revolutionary body and the political allegories embedded within it. Notably, the cast of characters at the outset reads like a “list of martyrs”; three particular types—the traitor, the dead, and the infant—each illuminate, through their distinct fates, the tension between revolutionary ideals and physical survival. Set against the backdrop of Malayan independence, the novel’s anticlimactic ending gestures toward a displacement of revolutionary discourse within the newly formed nation. Hunger here functions both as a counterstrike against British colonial oppression and as a lens through which to interrogate the internal predicaments of the nation-building dream. Between the ideal and the real, the novel projects a prophetic vision of a “nation-to-come”—a narrative practice that, in a moment of legitimacy crisis, sustains the dignity of the subject.

Keywords: Hunger; Jin Zhimang; MCP Writing; Revolutionary Literature

Author Biography: An Yiduo, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Chinese, Nanyang Technological University. Research interest: Malaysian Chinese Literature. E-mail: YIDUO001@e.ntu.edu.sg.

 Received: 20 Oct. 2025 / Revised: 28 Feb. 2026 / Accepted: 02 Apr. 2026 / Published online: 30 Apr. 2026 / Print published: 30 May 2026.