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Scott Savitt is the in-house Chinese-English translator for numerous human rights organizations and the New York Times. His articles have been published in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and many other newspapers and magazines. He is a former visiting scholar at Duke University.
“In this page-turning debut, Savitt, a New York Times’s Chinese-English translator, relates his experiences in China. He begins his story in 1982, when he was a first-year Duke student; grief-stricken after his girlfriend’s death, he decided to go on a study abroad trip to the country. Returning after graduation to pursue his journalistic dreams, Savitt finds himself in the midst of historic news stories. The book vividly describes his 17 years of knowing China as intimately as an American can, during which he sees its cultural and economic flowering. He also observes the Tiananmen Square massacre, where he dodges bullets and fights the urge to participate, not just witness. His creation of China’s first independent English-language newspaper gets him noticed, first by the Beijing bureaus of Western media outlets and then by the Communist Party. He comes across as a risk taker whose wealthy family back home could only help him so much—his activist reporting style eventually leads to solitary confinement and a hunger strike. Savitt is a smart, thrilling memoirist, but his book is not just a narrative roller-coaster ride: readers will receive a new understanding of what has happened in China over the past 30 years, from someone who stood shoulder to shoulder with students asking for a better country.” — Publishers Weekly (http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59376-652-8)
