Legacy MattersNien Cheng dies at 94; survivor of torture during China's Cultural Revolution
At a time when China's Communist leader Mao Tse-tung was trying to purge political rivals and reassert his authority, Cheng, the wealthy widow of an oil company executive, was one of untold numbers of professionals who were evicted from their homes by the Red Guard. She was arrested in August 1966 and falsely accused of being a spy.
Cheng endured 6 1/2 years of solitary confinement and torture in prison, refusing to confess or bow to the will of her interrogators. On her release, she discovered that her only child was dead, purportedly by suicide, but actually beaten to death by Red Guards.
In simple, exquisite detail, Cheng's 1987 book describes the maddeningly circular reasoning of those caught up in the revolution.
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"Far from depressing, it is almost exhilarating to witness her mind do battle," Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in the New York Times review of her book.
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By 1980, she had managed to leave China for Canada. Three years later she moved to Washington, using money her husband had left her in overseas bank accounts. In 1987, she was a guest at a White House state dinner, where she chatted with President Reagan. Her book was excerpted at length in Time magazine. She became a U.S. citizen in 1988.
"There were many Chinese who fought back and many who suffered much more. Some of them have never recovered," she said. "But my privilege has been to write about it, and that's only been possible because I could leave."