In a small, desperately poor village in north-east China, a young peasant boy sits at his rickety old school desk, interested more in the birds outside than in Chairman Mao's Red Book and the grand words it contains. But that day, some strange men come to his school - Madame Mao's cultural delegates. They are looking for young peasants to mould into faithful guards of Chairman Mao's great vision for China. The boy watches as one of his classmates is chosen and led away. His teacher hesitates. Will she or won't she? She very nearly doesn't. But at the last moment she taps the official on the shoulder and points to the small boy. 'What about that one?' she says. This is the true story of how that one moment in time, by the thinnest thread of a chance, changed the course of a small boy's life in some ways that are beyond description. One day he would dance with some of the greatest ballet companies of the world. One day he would be a friend to a president and first lady, movie stars...

a heartening rags-to-riches story. Paul English exercises such an intense and masterful concentration on the text that the listener’s interest never flags … He imbues the narrative with ingenuousness and enthusiasm, which endearingly befit the image Li is attempting to present of himself. The result is an audiobook that is superior to its source

 

Spring 2004 Breakout Book

 

Best Audiobook of 2004English clearly characterizes Cunxin and handles expertly the Chinese phrases and names. Excellent selection.

 

His life reads like a great story. Li Cunxin was born into poverty in Chairman Mao’s China. He seemed destined to stay in his peasant village except for a very luck break. From ballet, to the White House, to the FBI and an Australian beer, Li Cunxin turned stock broker, turned author has now documented his extraordinary life in a book, Mao’s Last Dancer. Li Cunxin was born in 1961, in the New Village, Li Commune, near the city of Qingdao on the coast of north-east China. The sixth of seven sons in a poor rural family, Li's peasant life in Chairman Mao’s communist China changed dramatically when, at the age of eleven, he was chosen by Madame Mao's cultural advisers to become a student at the Beijing Dance Academy. After a summer school in America, for which he was one of only two students chosen, he defected to the West and became a principal dancer for the Housten Ballet. Li went on to become one of the best male dancers in the world. He is now a senior manager in a major stockbroking firm and lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife Mary and their three children, Sophie, Tom and Bridie.

Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
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