Blood Letters

By: Lian Xi

Narrated by: Feodor Chin

The staggering story of the most important Chinese political dissident of the Mao era, a devout Christian who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the regime

Blood Letters tells the astonishing tale of Lin Zhao, a poet and journalist arrested by the authorities in 1960 and executed eight years later, at the height of the Cultural Revolution. The only Chinese citizen known to have openly and steadfastly opposed communism under Mao, she rooted her dissent in her Christian faith—and expressed it in long, prophetic writings done in her own blood, and at times on her clothes and on cloth torn from her bedsheets.

Miraculously, Lin Zhao's prison writings survived, though they have only recently come to light. Drawing on these works and others from the years before her arrest, as well as interviews with her friends, her classmates, and other former political prisoners, Lian Xi paints an indelible portrait of courage and faith in the face of unrelenting evil.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Lian Xi (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Blood Letters is one of the most important books on the Communist-era rights movements to be published in recent years. It is not only the first biography of Lin in English, but also the first in any language to carefully sort through the sometimes overwrought and polemical writing inspired by her martyrdom... highly readable, deeply informed..."—New York Review of Books

"[Lin Zhao's] story is grippingly related... her fate was inevitable: death by a firing squad. But thanks to scholar Lian Xi, her words survive."—Washington Times

"Blood Letters is an unsparing, meticulously researched, moving but unsentimental look at a complex and heroic figure. Without shying away from the realities of Lin Zhao's personal flaws and inner torment, Lian Xi's work also recognizes her important legacy, making it widely accessible for the first time to an English-speaking audience... an important-even vital-book."—Christianity Today

Fiery Witness

"Blood Letters" is the story of Lin Zhao, a Christian martyr in Mao's China. Educated at a Christian school before turning to the communism and then back to her Christian faith, she was an outspoken dissident during the Cultural Revolution and beforehand. In prison for most of the time, she was still able to make her voice heard with her literal blood letters. She punctured herself and wrote with her own blood, as a statement of noncompliance and in the fashion of Christ shedding his blood. This woman was a firebrand and a thorn in the side of Communism.

Amazing but winded at times

what to say about this story of a woman who stood he ground and kept her faith to the end. She never waivered or lost hope and continued to speak her truth. The story has some long winded sections that could have been omitted but still worth it.