Red in Tooth and Claw: Twenty-Six Years in Communist Chinese Prisons

In this extraordinary book the distinguished Chinese author Pu Ning relates the story of one man's imprisonment in Red China's ``labor correction'' system between 1951 and 1976. Han Wei-tien, arrested as a suspected Nationalist spy, was a laborer on the construction of the Chinghai-to-Tibet road under conditions so harsh that Pu Ning estimates the project ``resulted in more senseless deaths than did the construction of the Egyptian pyramids.'' Senseless death is the focus of this blood-drenched narrative, a record of wanton cruelty on a breathtaking scale. Han's worst ordeal, described in wrenching detail, was a year-and-a-half's confinement at the bottom of a dry well. But then a miracle occurred: a nomadic Tibetan fell in love with Han and, despite her knowledge that he was a convict, entered into a long affair with him and saved him from starvation and freezing on several occasions. Han now lives in Taiwan. (Apr.)