From the EastSouthWestNorth blog (link):
The Chinese-language edition of “Mao: The Unknown Story” by Chinese writer Jung Chang and her husband was originally scheduled to be released in May. Recently, the news came out that the project has been aborted. The chairman of Yuanliou Publishing Company Wang Jung-Wen announced that he has abandoned the effort to publish the traditional and simplified character versions of the book.
When the English-language version of “Mao: The Unknown Story” came out, it raced to the top of the bestseller lists in Europe and America. It was translated in French, German, Russian and Japanese. Even President George W. Bush said that he has read the book, and the new Germany chancellor Angela Merkel talked about the book when she visited the United States. But many of the points of view in the book also led to huge debates, as many historians and sinologists in Europe and America including Yale University history professor Jonathan Spence (in the New York Review of Books) all wrote to point out the weak bases for many of the arguments. In the Chinese-language world, the debate between affirmation and negation is even more vigorous.
See also – London Review of Books’ book review “Jade and Plastic“; – “The inhuman touch” by the Financial Times
