Troublemaker - Softcover

Vecsey, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345416252 ISBN 13: 9780345416254

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1998

Synopsis

In 1995, Chinese-born American citizen Harry Wu touched off an international incident when he was arrested in China for spying. As rumors swirled that Hillary Clinton's long-planned trip to Beijing depended on Wu's release, the world wondered: Who was this troublemaker? According to Wu, he is just one of thousands of "nameless, faceless people" who needlessly suffer and often die in the vast prison-labor system that is China's dirty little secret--a secret that Wu has risked his life to reveal.

Now, Harry Wu takes us on a soul-searching odyssey as he traces his bold effort to reenter China and expose its atrocities. We join him on covert trips to labor camps and to the hospitals where organs of executed prisoners sell for top dollar, witness the emotionally wrenching pilgrimages to the graves of persecuted friends and family, and, finally, brave the long months before his arrest when he feared the Chinese government might once and for all make a martyr of their number one troublemaker.

About this title

Review:

Harry Wu, China's most prominent dissident exile in the West, spent 19 years condemned as a counterrevolutionary in the laogai, his country's equivalent of the Soviet gulag system of forced labor camps. After escaping to California in 1985 he began a tireless campaign to publicize human rights abuses within the Chinese prison system, including the harvesting of organs from prisoners, and profiteering from forced labor supported by World Bank subsidies and U.S. importing of prison-made goods. Through Vecsey, a columnist for the New York Times, Wu recounts his incessant and intrepid troublemaking, including his clandestine trips back into China, on one of which he was caught, charged with spying, and deported after U.S. pressure for his release.

From the Back Cover:

"Compelling . . . Wu's passion never flags."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"In quick, punchy style, [Wu] explains . . . the demons that drive him."
--The Washington Post Book World

"[WU] IS A HERO OF OUR TIMES, AND HIS STORY DESERVES TO BE HEARD."
--The Economist

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0345416252
• ISBN 13: 9780345416254
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328