num_pages: 336
description: A masterpiece.  The Washington Post It was impossible. All of China was a prison in those days.Mao Zedongs labor reform camps known as the laogai  were notoriously brutal. Modeled on the Soviet Gulag they subjected their inmates to backbreaking labor malnutrition and vindictive wardens. They were thought to be impossible to escapebut one man did. Xu Hongci was a bright young student at the Shanghai No. 1 Medical College spending his days studying to be a professor and going to the movies with his girlfriend. He was also an idealistic and loyal member of the Communist Party and was generally liked and well respected. But when Mao delivered his famous February 1957 speech inviting a hundred schools of thought [to] contend an earnest Xu Hongci responded by posting a criticism of the partya near-fatal misstep. He soon found himself a victim of the Anti-Rightist Campaign condemned to spend the next fourteen years in the laogai . Xu Hongci became one of the roughly 550000 Chinese unjustly imprisoned after the spring of 1957 and despite the horrific conditions and terrible odds he was determined to escape. He failed three times before finally succeeding in 1972 in what was an amazing and arduous triumph. Originally published in Hong Kong Xu Hongcis remarkable memoir recounts his life from childhood through his final prison break. After discovering his story in a Hong Kong library the journalist Erling Hoh tracked down the original manuscript and compiled this condensed translation which includes background on this turbulent period an epilogue that follows Xu Hongci up to his death and Xu Hongcis own drawings and maps. Both a historical narrative and an exhilarating prison-break thriller No Wall Too High tells the unique story of a man who insisted on freedomeven under the most treacherous circumstances.
language: English
title: No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison
publisher: Sarah Crichton Books