Cindy Yu has narrated this article for you to listen to.
All families have secrets, but few family histories are classified by the state. After the death of Snow’s father, his study is cleared out by officials from the Chinese Communist party; but Snow discovers letters and unmarked hard drives hidden in hollowed-out dictionaries that they’d missed. The material reveals that her father was a high-ranking intelligence officer in the party, handpicked to build China’s intelligence service after the founding of the new People’s Republic. He’d hidden them for his family to find.
Jie provides a rare insider account showing just how much the CCP knew and how much it covered up
This isn’t the set-up for a new spy novel, but a true story. In 2018, Snow handed the trove of material to the Chinese journalist Xinran, who has collated it in The Book of Secrets, translated by Will Spence.
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