Olivia Cox-Fill: Walking a Tightrope: Memories of Wu Jieping, Personal Physician to China’s Leaders

Olivia Cox-Fill

Walking a Tightrope Memories of Wu Jieping, Personal Physician to China’s Leaders

Olivia Cox-Fill reveals the compelling story of Dr. Wu Jieping (1917 – 2011), selected as personal physician to China’s leaders by Premier Zhou Enlai.

‘All dissident scholars, protected by those in power, following the capitalist road, must be eliminated.’ Chairman Mao

The memoir shows what exceptional talent it took to survive and provides rare insight into life in communist China at a time when most leading intellectuals were expelled to the countryside, imprisoned, or beaten to death.

Walking A Tightrope takes us behind the Bamboo Curtain and rice paper walls to reveal the secret facts poisoning relationships between Mao Zedong and his Premier, Zhou Enlai, manoeuvred by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. It shows how she tried to seduce and entrap Dr. Wu in order to bring Zhou Enlai down.

It is the only first-hand account by a trusted witness, who was their personal physician.

As one of China’s most prestigious physicians, Dr. Wu developed from an intellectual into a national leader of New China and became a vice chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee. He established his global reputation in the field of urology, (acknowledged as gifted during his post-doc studies at the University of Chicago).  This book goes behind the scenes during China’s most destructive and turbulent period, the devastating Cultural Revolution, characterized by Dr Wu as cultural extinction.

Dr. Wu entrusted the inside story to his friend, Olivia Cox-Fill, on condition that she not reveal it until he was dead. It illustrates the lavish lifestyle and demands of some of the hierarchy against a background of the appalling conditions experienced by the populace. The new edition, with illustrative maps and photographs, considers the repressions of the past decade and invites readers to consider what they can do now to revitalise the embers of hope and promise, kindled during the period of “reform and opening-up” of China. It concludes with the author’s reflections on the experiences of Dr. Wu and considers parallels with life in China today.

Author website: https://oliviacoxfill.com

Author’s biographical note: Olivia Cox-Fill studied Medicine at University College Dublin and subsequently studied Chinese Literature and Journalism at Columbia University. She later took a two-year course in Mandarin at SOAS, University of London. Previous Publications:

For Our Daughters: How Outstanding Women Worldwide
Have Balanced Home and Career, Praeger 1996.
ISBN: 9780275951993 (hardback)
Chinese Edition: Nan Ren Neng Zuo de, Nu Ren Neng Zuo de Geng Hao, Tsinghua University Press, 2012.

Consultancy:

Olivia Cox-Fill was the Cultural Advisor for Zhuang Zi Tests His Wife by Su Liqun. [Experimental Theatre, Yadu Enterprise Group, 20 – 25 April 1995.]