Li Zhisui (; 30 December 1919 – 13 February 1995) was a Chinese American physician and Mao Zedong's personal doctor and confidant. He was born in Beijing, Republican China in 1919. He studied medicine during World War II at the Medical School of West China Union University. After emigrating to the United States, he wrote a biography of Mao entitled The Private Life of Chairman Mao, in which he described Mao as selfish, cruel, having a craving for young women, and poor personal hygiene. In 1980, he was appointed as the vice president of the Chinese Medical Association and the Chinese Gerontological Society, and served as the editor-in-chief of the Chinese versions of the Chinese Medical Journal and the American Medical Journal until he moved to the United States in 1988.
When he was appointed as Mao Zedong's personal physician in 1954 (Li claimed that it was 1954, but Jin Chongji believed that it was 1957 after verification), Li Zhisui recorded what he saw and heard on a daily basis, thus writing a very extensive diary. In 1966, due to the Red Guards' trend of house searches during the Cultural Revolution, the Li family burned the diary for fear of being implicated. After the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, Li Zhisui's wife urged him to write about his previous experiences.
In 1988, he moved to the United States. In 1994, the Chinese version of Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao was published by China Times Publishing in Taiwan, and the English version was published by Random House in the United States. Voice of America believes that this book has caused outrage among the Chinese Communist Party leadership. the eldest son Li Zhong and his eldest daughter-in-law Yang Balin; the second son Li Erzhong and his second daughter-in-law Li Mei.
Work
- The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Private Physician, publ. Random House, New York (1994),
References
- Li Zhisui on Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009