Product details
- ISBN 9781399406697
- Weight: 240g
- Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 14 Aug 2025
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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‘An extraordinary firsthand account of Communist Party machinery at its most brutal and paranoid’ --Sunday Telegraph
Picked as Hilary Spurling's Book of the Year in The Spectator.
The spellbinding story of the secret life of a spy in modern China, drawn from an extraordinary archive of personal diaries and letters.
Following the lives of military intelligence officer Jie and his wife Moon, The Book of Secrets weaves recently found material into a narrative that not only illuminates the shadowy world of intelligence in China, but also the emotional tragedies that political extremism inflicted on those working within.
Drawing on Jie’s own vivid biography of his youth, Xinran pieces together his trajectory as he joins the great hope of the Chinese young – the Communist Party – and becomes a loyal cadre until the late 1970s when, as a chief in the security forces, he makes a decision that will poison his family against him.
This is a totally unique behind-the-scenes account of a family torn apart by the Tiananmen Square massacre and the attempts of Jie to finally open up the Chinese system to the people, pieced together from an extraordinary archive of personal diaries and letters.
Xinran is a British–Chinese author, journalist and activist. Her first book, The Good Women of China (2002) became an international bestseller and The Promise was shortlisted for the Society of Authors Translation Prize.
In August 2004 Xinran set up ‘The Mothers’ Bridge of Love’ (MBL), which reaches out to Chinese children all over the world. By creating a bridge of understanding between China and the West, MBL ultimately wants to help bridge the huge poverty gap that still exists in China.
