Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (PB) (1996)

First banned in its native land, this earthy, unflinching memoir has become one of the biggest bestsellers in the history of China.

In 1968, a fervent young Red Guard joined the army of hotheaded adolescents who trekked to Inner Mongolia to spread the Cultural Revolution. After gaining a reputation as a brutal abuser of the local herd owners and nomads, Ma Bo casually criticized a Party Leader. Denounced as an "active counterrevolutionary" and betrayed by his friends, the idealistic youth was brutally beaten and imprisoned.

Charged with passion, never doctrinaire, Blood Red Sunset is a startlingly vivid and personal narrative that opens a window on the psyche of totalitarian excess that no other work of history can provide. This is a tale of ideology and disillusionment, a powerful work of political and literary importance.

"A deceptively straightforward story carried forward by deep currents of insight."--The Washington Post

"A genuine, no-holds-barred, unadorned piece of writing...echoing the realities of contemporary China."--Liu Binyan, The New York Times Book Review