Mao's Last Dancer »

Li Cunxin was born in a village near the city of Qingdao, in northern China. At eighteen, he was selected to perform with the Houston Ballet, leading to his dramatic defection to the United States. Li, who has performed as a principal dancer with the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet, now lives with his wife and their three children.

From a desperately poor village in northeast China, at age eleven, Li Cunxin was chosen by Madame Mao's cultural delegates to be taken from his rural home and brought to Beijing, where he would study ballet. In 1979, the young dancer arrived in Texas as part of a cultural exchange, only to fall in love with America-and with an American woman. Two years later, through a series of events worthy of the most exciting cloak-and-dagger fiction, he defected to the United States, where he quickly became known as one of the greatest ballet dancers in the world. This is his story, told in his own inimitable voice.

Publishers Weekly

This is the heartening rags-to-riches story of Li, who achieved prominence on the international ballet stage. Born in 1961, just before the Cultural Revolution, Li was raised in extreme rural poverty and witnessed Communist brutality, yet he imbibed a reverence for Mao and his programs. In a twist of fate worthy of a fairy tale (or a ballet), Li, at age 11, was selected by delegates from Madame Mao's arts programs to join the Beijing Dance Academy. In 1979, through the largesse of choreographer and artistic director Ben Stevenson, he was selected to spend a summer with the Houston Ballet-the first official exchange of artists between China and America since 1949. Li's visit, with its taste of freedom, made an enormous impression on his perceptions of both ballet and of politics, and once back in China, Li lobbied persistently and shrewdly to be allowed to return to America. Miraculously, he prevailed in getting permission for a one-year return. In an April 1981 spectacle that received national media attention, Li defected in a showdown at the Chinese consulate in Houston. He married fellow dancer Mary McKendry and gained international renown as a principal dancer with the Houston Ballet and later with the Australian Ballet; eventually, he retired from dance to work in finance. Despite Li's tendency toward the cloying and sentimental, his story will appeal to an audience beyond Sinophiles and ballet aficionados-it provides a fascinating glimpse of the history of Chinese-U.S. relations and the dissolution of the Communist ideal in the life of one fortunate individual. 8 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (Apr. 5) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

A Wedding: Qingdao, 1946 xi

Part 1 My Childhood

1 Home 3

2 My Niang and Dia 20

3 A Commune Childhood 37

4 The Seven of Us 55

5 Na-na 70

6 Chairman Mao's Classroom 81

7 Leaving Home 104

Part 2 Beijing

8 Feather in a Whirlwind 123

9 The Caged Bird 140

10 That First Lonely Year 154

11 The Pen 168

12 My Own Voice 180

13 Teacher Xiao's Words 201

14 Turning Points 220

15 The Mango 236

16 Change 245

17 On the Way to the West 255

18 The Filthy Capitalist America 266

19 Good-bye, China 282

Part 3 The West

20 Return to the Land of Freedom 303

21 Elizabeth 314

22 Defection 325

23 My New Life 339

24 A Millet Dream Come True 351

25 No More Nightmares 365

26 Russia 379

27 Mary 392

28 Going Home 408

29 Back in My Village 416

30 Another Wedding: Qingdao, 1988 431

Afterword to the Original Edition 439

Part 4 My Story Continues

31 Keeping Hearts Warm 447

32 "Nothing Is Impossible" 459

33 Paper Wishes 474

The Li Family Tree 493

Acknowledgments 495

Discussion Guide 497

Photographic Credits 499