Excerpt from Man's Fate

Originally published in 1933

"Ch'en was become aware, with a revulsion verging on nausea, that he stood here, not as a fighter, but as a sacrificial priest. He was serving the gods of his choice; but beneath his sacrifice to the Revolution lay a world of depths beside which this night of crushing anguish was bright as day."

André Malraux's novel Man's Fate is set in Shanghai, China, in the spring of 1927. Chinese Communists are trying to stage a revolutionary uprising in the country's most industrialized city. A terrorist named Ch'en has been sent to assassinate an arms dealer in order to obtain a document that will enable the Communists to obtain three hundred guns. Meanwhile, forces led by Chiang Kai-Shek attack their Communist allies, executing thousands. (Chiang [1887–1975] was a military leader who would rule China for twenty years.)

Although...