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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Tombstone

Book of the Week: Tombstone: Episode 1

Factual: History

Tombstone

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Tombstone, Episode 1

The untold story of Mao's Great Famine, during which 36 million Chinese starved to death.

4 Extra Debut. Yang Jishen's untold story of Mao's Great Famine during which 36 million Chinese starved to death. Read by David Yip.

"I call this book Tombstone. It is a tombstone for my father who died of hunger in 1959, for the 36 million Chinese who also died of hunger, for the system that caused their death and perhaps for myself for writing this book."

Yang Jishen's book is banned in China. It is a passionate and angry account of one of the 20th century's most shocking man-made disasters. Based on an array of new sources and personal testimonies and written by someone who was a Communist Party insider with remarkable access to official archives, Tombstone is as significant and powerful a work as Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. 

Read by David Yip.


Produced and abridged by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.

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Yang Jishen's book on Mao's Great Famine, during which 36 million Chinese starved to death

Yang Jishen's book, banned in China, tells the story of Mao's Great Famine, during which 36 million Chinese starved to death

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