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Article: Woman of Ill Repute.(Review)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- August 28, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Becoming Madame Mao, by Anchee Min (Houghton Mifflin, 338 pp., $25) Anchee Min's Becoming Madame Mao, a biography in the form of a novel, is at least the third English-language attempt to present Mao Tse-tung's third wife as a tragic figure. Ross Terrill, in Madam Mao: The White-Boned Demon, did the most digging; but Maoist sympathies prevented him from seeing the Communist interregnum for the total catastrophe it is. Roxane Witke's Comrade Chiang Ching was written on the basis of long personal interviews, the only ones ever given to a foreigner, at the height of Mme. Mao's power; but the book betrays the twists and turns of a semi-authorized tract as well as a feminist ...