Life and Death in Shanghai
Ebook
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Overview
The national bestselling memoir of a woman’s resistance and struggles in Communist China—"an absorbing story of resourcefulness and courage" ( The New York Times).
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
In August 1966, a group of Red Guards ransacked the home of Nien Cheng. Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, and an employee of Shell Oil. When she refused to confess that any of this made her an enemy of the state, she was placed in solitary confinement, where she would remain for more than six years.
Life and Death in Shanghai recounts the story of Nien Cheng’s imprisonment—a time of extreme deprivation which she met with heroic resistance—as well as her quest for justice when she was released. It is also the story of a country torn apart by Mao Zedong’s vicious campaign to topple party moderates. An incisive, personal account of a terrifying chapter in twentieth-century history, Life and Death in Shanghai is also an astounding portrait of one woman’s courage.
“At the heart of this book is not the darkness of this cell, but the light of Nien Cheng’s mind . . . the keenness of her thought and expression.” —The New York Times
“The extraordinary story of an extraordinary woman who, despite 6½ years of imprisonment and torment in Communist China, not only survived but endured and even prevailed.” —Time
“A gripping, poignant chronicle of her courage, fortitude, and, above all, stubborn integrity during more than six years of cold, hunger, disease, terror, and humiliation.” —Stanley Karnow, The Washington Post Book World
“The extraordinary story of an extraordinary woman who, despite 6½ years of imprisonment and torment in Communist China, not only survived but endured and even prevailed.” —Time
“A gripping, poignant chronicle of her courage, fortitude, and, above all, stubborn integrity during more than six years of cold, hunger, disease, terror, and humiliation.” —Stanley Karnow, The Washington Post Book World
- Title: Life and Death in Shanghai
- Author: Nien Cheng
- Publisher: Grove Press
- Print Publication Date: 2010
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 560
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780802196156, 9780802145161, 0802145167, 0802196152
- Resource ID: LLS:9780802196156
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2026-03-10T05:16:26Z
Nien Cheng (1915–2009) was the author of the critically-acclaimed, international best-selling memoir Life and Death in Shanghai. Released from prison in 1973, Cheng emigrated in 1980, first to Canada and then to the United States, where she became a U.S. citizen in 1988. Cheng died at her home in Washington, D.C. in 2009 at the age of 94.