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Cultural Revolution (China : 1966-1976)

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15:38

Poet Li-Young Lee on His Family's Escape from Mao's China

Lee has written two volumes of poetry, Rose and The City in Which I Love You. He's won many awards for his work, including the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He's just completed a memoir about his family's refugee experience in America, The Winged Seed. Lee was born in Indonesia; his parents were from China, where his father had been private physician to Mao. After escaping Southeast Asia, the family ended up in a small town in Pennsylvania, where his father headed an all-white Presbyterian church.

Interview
13:47

A U.S-Educated Academic's Prison Time in Communist China

Wu Ningkun, author of a new personal and political memoir, A Single Tear, talks about surviving three decades of Communist rule in China. Wu was born in China, went to college in the United States, and returned to China in 1951 with hopes that the new Communist regime would benefit his country. Instead, he was labeled counter-revolutionary for teaching works by Western authors and sentenced to serve time at various labor camps and prisons. He now lives in the United States with his family.

Interview
27:25

On "Life and Death in Shanghai"

Nien Cheng and her husband were educated abroad and lived a comfortable, bourgeois life before China's Cultural Revolution. Though Cheng faced persecution, interrogation, and imprisonment, she was mostly able to maintain her lifestyle--and her loyalty to her country. She now lives in Washington, D.C.

Interview
03:47

Surviving a Revolution

Author Nien Cheng was a wealthy gentlewoman during China's Cultural Revolution. While book critic John Leonard doesn't find Cheng particularly likable, he believes her writing provides a unique and valuable perspective on that history.

Review

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