The Private Life of Chairman Mao

The Private Life Of Chairman Mao

The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician is a memoir by Li Zhisui, one of the physicians to the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong, which was first published in 1994. Li had emigrated to the United States in the years after Mao's death. The book describes the time during which Li was Mao's physician, beginning with his return to China after training in Australia, through the height of Mao's power to his death in 1976 including the diverse details of Mao's personality, sexual proclivities, party politics and personal habits. The authenticity of the accounts has been questioned by many people, including Professor Tai Hung-chao, who translated the book into English. Tai revealed that the publisher, Random House, put more sensationalist elements to the book than that which Li had provided them, despite Li's own protestations.

The book was well received by western media, with reviews praising it for being corroborated by other sources and giving a detailed, fly on the wall perspective on Mao's personal life. The book was controversial and ultimately banned in the People's Republic of China, with other associates of Mao publishing Chinese language rebuttals in which they argued that much of it was fabricated by Li himself and by his English language translators.