Book description
Every nation has its founding myth, and for modern China it is the Long March.
In 1934, the fledgling Communist Party and its 200,000 strong armies
were forced out of their bases by Chiang Kaishek and his National troops.
Walking more than 10,000 miles over mountains, grassland and swamps,
they suffered appalling casualties and ended up in the remote barren
North. Just one-fifth survived; they went on to launch the new China in
the heat of revolution. A legend was born. Justified by a remarkable
feat, the Long March was also a triumph of propaganda, for Mao and for
the revolution.
Seventy years later Sun Shuyun set out to retrace the Marchers' steps.
The rugged landscape has changed little. Her greatest difficult was in
wrestling with the scenes lodged in her mind since childhood, part of
the upbringing of every Chinese. On each stage of her journey, she found
hidden stories: the ruthless purges, the terrible toll of hunger and
disease, the fate of women on the March, the huge number of desertions,
the futile deaths.
The real story of the March, the most vivid pictures, come from the
veterans whom Sun Shuyun has found. She follows their trail through all
those harsh miles, discovers their faith and disillusion, their pain and
their hopes, and also recounts how many suffered even after the March's
end in 1936.
'The Long March' was an epic journey of endurance, even more severe
than history books say, and courage against impossible odds. It is a
brave, exciting and tragic story. Sun Shuyun tells it for the first
time, as it really happened. '…an impressive job of on-the-ground
reporting, interweaving the memories of survivors to build up the
narrative… ' Observer
'Sun Shuyun provides a sympathetic account, and …all the more
refreshing because of the grit of her own travails.' The Times
'[Sun Shuyun's] is a lively and very human account.' Sunday Telegraph
'…a testament to Shuyun's old-fashioned journalistic values. She has
gone to places where something has happened and asked questions.' Telegraph
'…from the ocean of lies about the Long March she has salvaged much
truth. I hope…Shuyun writes more books…' Literary Review
'There is a warmth to Sun Shuyun's account that makes it much more
readable [than Jung Chang's Mao biography]…her own personal voyage of
discovery adds poignancy to her vividly descriptive book.' Metro Sun
Shuyun was born in China in the 1960s. She graduated from Beijing
University and won a scholarship to Oxford. She is a film and television
producer and has made documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4 and
international broadcasters. For the past decade she has divided her time
between Beijing and London.
