The Historical Truth Behind Mao's China

Jung Chang

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2009 Havel Prize Laureates
Jung Chang is an award-winning Chinese-born British author who speaks about the power of literature, the importance of truth in historical biography, and how the Chinese regime was able to manipulate that truth in order to disguise Mao Zedong — one of history’s most terrible murderers — as a compassionate and successful ruler. 

About the Speaker

Jung Chang

Jung

Chang

Award-winning Chinese-born British author

Jung Chang is an award-winning Chinese-born British author. Her bestselling book, “Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China,” tells the story of her family. During the Cultural Revolution, Chang worked as a peasant farmer, a “barefoot doctor” in rural China, a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming a student of English at Sichuan University. She left China for the United Kingdom in 1978 and earned a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of York in 1982, becoming the first person from Communist China to receive a doctorate from a British university. Chang is the winner of numerous awards, including the UK Writers’ Guild Best Non-Fiction and Book of the Year UK. “Wild Swans” was adapted for the stage and performed by London’s Young Vic Company in 2012. She’s also authored Her other books are “Mao: The Unknown Story” and “Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China.” Chang has received honorary doctorates from the University of Buckingham, York, and Warwick, the Open University, and Bowdoin College.

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