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The much-anticipated definitive account of China's Great Famine An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as the three years of natural disaster. As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China's totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest. Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power.

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Yang Jisheng was born in 1940, joined the Communist Party in 1964, and worked for the Xinhua News Agency from January 1968 until his retirement in 2001. He is now a deputy editor at Yanhuang Chunqiu (Chronicles of History), an official journal that regularly skirts censorship with articles on controversial political topics. He is the author of the book Tombstone. Guo Jian is professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Originally trained in Chinese language and literature, Guo was on the Chinese faculty of Beijing Normal University until he came to the United States to study for his PhD in English in the mid-1980's. He is a translator of Yang Jisheng's Tombstone. Nancy Wu has narrated audiobooks since 2004, winning three AudioFile Earphones Awards. A New York theater, television, and film actor, she has recorded in studios all over the world--from Italy to Switzerland to Thailand. Her credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Hope & Faith, All My Children, Made for Each Other, and the Oscar-nominated film Frozen River. Edward Friedman is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is coeditor of Asia's Giants: Comparing China and India with Bruce Gilley. Edward Friedman is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is coeditor of Asia's Giants: Comparing China and India with Bruce Gilley. Stacy Mosher learned Chinese in Hong Kong, where she lived for nearly eighteen years. She is a translator of Yang Jisheng's Tombstone. A long-time journalist, Mosher currently works as an editor and translator in Brooklyn. Stacy Mosher learned Chinese in Hong Kong, where she lived for nearly eighteen years. She is a translator of Yang Jisheng's Tombstone. A long-time journalist, Mosher currently works as an editor and translator in Brooklyn. Roderick MacFarquharwas Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science, and Professor of Government, at Harvard University. His publications include Mao's Last Revolution, coauthored with Michael Schoenhals, and The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms.

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