Mao's Last Dancer
I recently read Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin. My fiance was at a conference where Li was the guest speaker and told his story. Li gave him a copy of the book and signed it for me. Li lives in Australia now. It's basically a biography but written in novel form about Li growing up in China admist the Communist revolution. His family was extremely poor. Li was chosen to train at Beijing Dance Academy which opened up many opportunities for him. He even went to America and met President Bush. Li became one of the world's best dancers. (I didn't ruin the story this is on the jacket of the book). There is a movie coming out about this soon I believe. If you loved Memoirs of a Geisha then you will be blown away by this man's story. My mouth still drops with admiration and disbelief whenever I think about this book.

I loved this book and have recommended it to quite a few people. I think Li may have appeared on Australian Story on the ABC at some point. I found that his story was incredibly inspiring. When you think about how young he was when he started his ballet training - leaving his family and not knowing what was in store for him. I don't tend to read biography/autobiographies, but this was one worth making an exception for. I have Memoirs of a Geisha on my 'to read' list as well.

I meant for this post to go in the 'must read list'. Don't know what happened there. Clicked the wrong button somewhere I guess. Glad you loved it too Sooze.

I'll move it for you :) I read this on Sooze's recommendation. You are so right - it was amazing what sort of life he had. I also found that unlike a lot of autobiographies *coughundercoverpropcough*, he didn't talk himself up all the time. I enjoyed the book so much, I bought it for my mum for Christmas. She used to dance herself when she was younger.

Just mentioning that I bought my children the picture book version of this - The Peasant Prince. It's beautifully illustrated, and the story is simply told for kids. I was pleased to hear that my daughter's class was read the story at school a few weeks ago as well. The movie is scheduled for 2010, according to imdb. It has Kyle McLachlan listed first, but they don't specify which character he might be playing. I hope it's one of the Americans, not Li Cunxin! We have an article about the different versions of the story at Suite 101.