Deng Xiaoping

A best-seller in China, Deng Xiaoping, My Father is a revealing biography by Deng Maomao, the ruler's youngest daughter and, since 1989, his personal assistant. With this book she breaks the taboo among family members of senior Chinese officials against publishing a biography of a close relative who is still alive. But Deng Maomao saw a side of her famous father that she felt compelled to share with the world.

Deng Maomao writes with flair and insight about people and events long shrouded in mystery. With a great respect for China's history and the achievements of its leaders, she focuses on the first half of Deng's remarkable sixty-year career, from his birth in a village in Sichuan province and his education in France to his underground revolutionary work and his rise as a military commander, an important government official, and a key leader of the Communist Party. Since becoming China's ruler in 1978, Deng Xiaoping has molded the country according to his own vision, with tight Communist Party control over politics and a freewheeling atmosphere of experimentation and market-oriented policies in economics. Economically liberal but politically conservative, Deng Xiaoping is a contradictory figure. With Deng Xiaoping, My Father, Deng Maomao offers the first insider account of this enigmatic, post-revolutionary Chinese leader.