On
June 4, 1989, People’s Liberation Army soldiers opened fire on unarmed
civilians in Beijing, killing untold hundreds of people. A quarter-century later, Louisa Lim charts how the events of June 4th changed
China, and how China changed the events of June 4th by rewriting its own
history.
This book reveals new details about the fateful
days in Tiananmen Square including how one of the country’s most senior
politicians lost a family member to an army bullet, and uncovers the inside
story of the young soldiers sent to clear Tiananmen Square. Louisa Lim introduces us to the individuals
whose lives were transformed by the events of Tiananmen Square. For example,
one of the most important government officials in the country became one of its
most prominent dissidents post-Tiananmen.
For the first time, Lim exposes the details of a
brutal crackdown in a second Chinese city, Chengdu. By tracking down eyewitnesses,
discovering US diplomatic cables, and combing through official Chinese records,
Lim offers the first accessible, English-language account of a story that has remained mostly untold for
twenty-five years.
Louisa Lim began her journalistic career in Hong Kong, and was later appointed as the BBC's Beijing Correspondent. She has reported from China for
the past decade, most recently as NPR's Beijing Correspondent. She has made a very rare reporting trip to North Korea,
covered illegal abortions in Guangxi province, and worked on a major
multimedia series on religion in China, New Believers: A Religious
Revolution in China.
Early praise for The People’s Republic of Amnesia…
“A deeply moving
book—thoughtful, careful, and courageous. The portraits and stories it contains
capture the multi-layered reality of China, as well as reveal the sobering
moral compromises the country has made to become an emerging world power, even
one hailed as presenting a compelling alternative to Western democracies. Yet
grim as these stories and portraits sometimes are, they also provide glimpse of
hope, through the tenacity, clarity of conscience, and unflinching zeal of the
dissidents, whether in China or in exile, who against all odds yearn for a
better tomorrow.”
–Shen Tong, former student activist and
author of Almost a Revolution
“Astonishingly Beijing has managed to
obliterate the collective memory of Tiananmen Square, but a
quarter-century later Louisa Lim deftly excavates long-buried memories of the
1989 massacre. With a journalist's eye to history, she tracks down key witnesses,
everyone from a military photographer at the square to a top official
sentenced to seven years in solitary confinement to a mother whose teenaged son
was shot to death that night. This book is essential reading for understanding
the impact of mass amnesia on China's quest to become the world's next economic
superpower.”
–Jan Wong, author of Red China Blues and A Comrade Lost and
Found
People's Republic of Amnesia is published in hardback by OUP, priced in local currencies.
People's Republic of Amnesia is published in hardback by OUP, priced in local currencies.
