Description
About the Author
Yuan-tsung Chen is a former official under Mao in the 1950s. She is also the author of the novel The Dragon's Village and a winning survivor from Maoism.
Reviews
[A] beautifully crafted memoir.... [The Secret Listener is] a good antidote not just to official, sanitized versions of China's past but also to flattened-out portrayals of Mao's China as peopled by neatly separate groups of perpetrators and victims. * Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Foreign Affairs *
By opening a personal porthole into China's twentieth-century history, Yuan-tsung Chen, who lived through these tumultuous decades, allows Mao's tectonic and savage revolution to come alive in new and more convincing, if tragic, ways * Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Asia Society Center on US-China Relations *
The autobiography of the well-known author Yuan-tsung Chen is an enthralling sequel to her famous Return to the Middle Kingdom and The Dragon's Village. It is a fascinating life story of how challenging it was to be an intellectual woman in Mao's China even with some connections to the Party elite. The memoir reads like a novel but it also adds precious historical details to our understanding of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other Chinese Communist Party leaders, as well as of such infamous events as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Thrilling and terrifying, intriguing and captivating, this is a brilliant first-hand account of the Maoist era. * Alexander V. Pantsov, coauthor of Mao: The Real Story *
Chen Yuan-tsung is not only a secret listener, but more importantly, a secret observer, and in this compelling memoir, she vividly portrays life, conflict, and love among elite and downtrodden circles in the Republican and Communist eras of twentieth-century China. She brilliantly recreates events and conversations that show how behind-the-scenes struggles at the top impact the daily lives of Chinese up and down the social and political hierarchies. * Thomas B. Gold, University of California, Berkeley *
In 1957, in the midst of Mao's anti-rightist campaign, Chen Yuan-tsung burned the manuscript she had dreamed would become her great book. Since leaving China in 1971, her two wonderful autobiographical novels have received well-deserved, enthusiastic praise. But it is with the publication of The Secret Listener that Chen's dream of writing a great book about China has finally come true. China specialists and neophytes alike will be fascinated, moved, and horrified by Chen's depiction of the struggles of ordinary Chinese, as their world turns upside down and some retain their integrity while many others lose it. * Anne F. Thurston, Editor of Engaging China *
A sweeping and fascinating tale of an extraordinary life in a tumultuous China from the 1920s to 1970s. From foreign wars to civil wars to revolutionary campaigns designed to radically remake society, Yuan-tsung Chen not only observed it but participated in much of it. In her first-hand account Chen has produced a wonderfully written book easily accessible to all readers. * A. Tom Grunfeld, SUNY-Empire State College *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197573341
Author Yuan-tsung Chen
Format Hardback
Page Count 352
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 526g
Dimensions(mm) 244mm * 160mm * 28mm