No Wall Too High

No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison by Xu Hongci, Erling Hoh, (Translator). Sarah Crichton Books (2018). 

White Grass Ridge

The author was born in Shanghai in 1933. While in medical school in 1957, he and some fellow students put up a big character poster advocating for greater democracy in China. This got hm expelled from both school and the Chinese Communist Party, and then sent to a forced labor camp called White Grass Ridge in Anhui Province.

First Escape Attempt

In 1958 he escaped this camp and went to the border with Burma in Yunnan Province. He was captured trying to escape and spent many more years as a prisoner.

Second Escape Attempt

In 1972 he managed to escape from his camp in Yunnan, and headed north to the border with Mongolia. This time, he was able to cross the border without getting caught.

Mongolia

He spent two years in a work camp in Mongolia before finally becoming a free man in 1974. He married a Mongolian woman, Sukh Oyunbileg, had three children with her, and in 1984 moved with his family back to Shanghai.