Bitter Winds: A Memoir of My Years in China's Gulag [Paperback]

Harry Wu (Author), Carolyn Wakeman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1995 | ISBN-10: 0471114251 | ISBN-13: 978-0471114253

A searing eyewitness account of what life was like in the prison camps of China during the 1960s and 1970s--through the rise of the Cultural Revolution and the Red Brigade, the death of Mao to the struggles of post-Maoist China. The author exposes the Chinese practice of exporting forced labor goods illegally into the U.S. Due to his appearance on ``Sixty Minutes'' and a cover story in Newsweek, Harry Wu was invited to speak before Congress resulting in a continuing investigation regarding his findings.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In April 1960, Chinese Communist authorities arrested Harry Wu, the son of a well-to-do Shanghai banker. He was cast into a prison camp and, though never formally charged or tried, he spent the next nineteen years in a hellish netherworld of grinding labor, systematic starvation, and torture. Bitter Winds is the powerful story of Harry Wu's imprisonment and survival, of extraordinary acts of courage, and of unforgettable heroism.

From Publishers Weekly

In this eloquent memoir, Wu recalls his 19 years in Chinese labor camps. Though a middle-class college student, he was initially a patriotic Communist, but he soon ran afoul of the thought police. Hoping to flee the country in 1959, he was denounced as an "enemy of the revolution." The book, written with Wakeman, coauthor of To the Storm: The Odyssey of a Revolutionary Chinese Woman , focuses primarily on Wu's first decade as a prisoner struggling against starvation, seeing others succumb and learning a brutal survival ethic from fellow inmates. It is an intimate story of bravery and tragedy, including details about hallucinations, torture and the loss of comrades. The Cultural Revolution led to Wu's transfer to a mine, where he stayed for 10 years. There, he began to carve out a life, marrying a woman who later betrayed him. Six years after his release in 1979, he left for the U.S., where he is now a resident scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. An epilogue briefly describes Wu's continuing heroism: in 1991, he returned to China and surreptitiously filmed labor camps for the TV program 60 Minutes.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (March 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471114251
• ISBN-13: 978-0471114253
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #113,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The book is a convincing expose of Communist Chinese cruelty, October 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bitter Winds: A Memoir of My Years in China's Gulag (Paperback)

Bitter Winds is Harry Wu's convincing story of his 19 years in the Red Chinese gulag, the government's slave labor camp system for political dissidents and common criminals. Committed without trial, charges or definite sentence, Harry survived years of senseless political indoctrination, forced labor, beatings, the brutality of fellow prisoners, cold, and starvation. His only crimes were his status as a member of the pre-revolutionary Chinese middle class and his candid criticism of the Communist Party done at the party's invitation. The difference between the terror suffered by Harry and the Stalinist death camps is that China's concentration camps continue to this day. Why didn't someone do something about the Nazi and Soviet camps? Why does the U.S. State Dept. ignore the Red Chinese murders occurring today? Today's leaders of China are undoubtedly proud of their camp system, patterned after that of their erstwhile ally Jos. Stalin, which was revealed in books like Victor Herman's Coming Out of the Ice and the recent account Man Is Wolf to Man.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now I Know, May 19, 2001

By 

P. Lambert (DRAPER, UT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bitter Winds: A Memoir of My Years in China's Gulag (Paperback)

I've been very aware of the Holocaust and all its horrors and injustices. I have seen movies, read articles, read books; all the information is there. But the Cultural Revolution? I only knew that it happened in China - I wasn't even sure what years it occured. I had no concept of its irrational and unjust practices. No idea of the horrible lengths of time people were incarcerated, no idea of the revolting conditions and unspeakable starvation. Harry Wu is right. He did need to write this and inform us. I kept thinking back to my own life during the years he was describing. 1960-61-62? graduating from college, getting married and having my first child. Did I have my head in the sand or did we not have the coverage of events that we have today? I didn't know (or maybe wasn't interested) in events on the other side of the world - except to urge my children to clean their plates because children in China were starving. I had no idea! Harry Wu writes candidly, clearly and courageously. This is a book that I will not forget and will urge friends to read. I travel to China in June for 3 weeks. All the people I will see who are my age (62) experienced some form of repression, indignity, involvement - the list goes on. How I admire them and honor them for their perserverance. Thank you, Harry Wu!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fire, December 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bitter Winds: A Memoir of My Years in China's Gulag (Paperback)

I had the pleasure of having coffee with Mr. Harry Wu one evening. Hearing him talk about China over that cup of coffee was a moving experience that I will never forget. His book carries that same fire. The book acquaints one with the Chinese people, their deep suffering, and even brings one to a greater understanding of suffering in anyone. Also, the book is simply written, so it is easy to read.