Description: Combining a heartbreaking love story with a gripping tale of incarceration in Stalin's gulag and Mao's concentration camps, Patrick Lescot's Before Mao is a deeply moving, beautifully told saga of Li Lisan, Mao's predecessor at the head of the Chinese communist party, and a key member of the Russian and Chinese revolutions. After leading the Chinese communist party in the 1920s, Li was a rare survivor among the Chinese members of the Internationale. He was eventually allowed to return to China after having been elected, in absentia, to Mao Zedong's government. When Mao and Khrushchev fell out of power after 1959, both Li and his wife Lisa would become victims of the Cultural Revolution. Born in Tunisia in 1953, Patrick Lescot is editor-in-chief of the news service Agence France-Presse. He has been a correspondent in Johannesburg, Beijing, Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Bangkok and Phnom Penh. He studied Chinese history and language, philosophy, and journalism. He spent several years in China, where he reported on the Tibetan uprising in Lhassa and the Tiananmen Square protests. He lives in Paris. "A deeply moving, beautifully told saga that lays faith once again in the indomitable human spirit." -- Le Figaro

Please Wait