Book Review: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF CHAIRMAN MAO by Li Zhisui

The Emperor's physician tells all

Book review: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF CHAIRMAN MAO (1994) by Li Zhisui

The Chinese government does not want you to read this book — or know about its existence.

The author worked for many years as Mao Zedong's personal physician. This gave him a unique insight into the inner circle around Mao, and the dictator's personal life and character.

This book is Dr. Li Zhisui's account of his experience as physician for a man whose rule — and misrule — cost millions of lives. The job came with tremendous risks — Dr. Zhisui was not allowed to resign or slip up. Somehow he managed to survive the times when no one in China was safe, even at the top.

Those of you who have seen the movie THE DEATH OF STALIN (2017) will recognize a similar sense of a regime gone mad in Li Shizui’s account of Mao’s death and burial. (I hesitate to say more; it is bizarre. You will have to just read it.)

Few thriller writers could write a novel more tense than this true story.

Highly recommended. Not only because it is a genuinely fascinating testimony. But also because it shows us a side of tyranny that despots try to hide — the intrigues and chaos behind the facade of order, the pettiness and corruption, the incompetence and paranoia.

(The despots of today also have their own private physicians. Perhaps someday, they too will tell the truth about their patients…)