Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

First banned in its native land, this earthy, unflinching memoir has become one of the biggest bestsellers in the history of China.

In 1968, a fervent young Red Guard joined the army of hotheaded adolescents who trekked to Inner Mongolia to spread the Cultural Revolution. After gaining a reputation as a brutal abuser of the local herd owners and nomads, Ma Bo casually criticized a Party Leader. Denounced as an “active counterrevolutionary” and betrayed by his friends, the idealistic youth was brutally beaten and imprisoned.

Charged with passion, never doctrinaire, Blood Red Sunset is a startlingly vivid and personal narrative that opens a window on the psyche of totalitarian excess that no other work of history can provide. This is a tale of ideology and disillusionment, a powerful work of political and literary importance.

“A deceptively straightforward story carried forward by deep currents of insight.”—The Washington Post

“A genuine, no-holds-barred, unadorned piece of writing…echoing the realities of contemporary China.”—Liu Binyan, The New York Times Book Review