No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison

"A masterpiece." —The Washington Post

"It was impossible. All of China was a prison in those days."

Mao Zedong’s labor reform camps, known as the laogai, were notoriously brutal. Modeled on the Soviet Gulag, they subjected their inmates to backbreaking labor, malnutrition, and vindictive wardens. They were thought to be impossible to escape—but one man did.

Xu Hongci was a bright young student at the Shanghai No. 1 Medical College, spending his days studying to be a professor and going to the ...