The Peasant Prince

Author: Li Cunxin

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $35.00 NZD
  • : 9780670070541
  • : Penguin Books Australia
  • : Viking Australia
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  • : April 2007
  • : Australia
  • : 36.0
  • : December 2013
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Li Cunxin
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  • : Hardback
  • : 1
  • : Anne Spudvilas
  • : en
  • : 792.8092
  • :
  • : 40
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Barcode 9780670070541
9780670070541

Description

This true story of a poor Chinese peasant boy who, plucked unsuspectingly at the age of ten from millions of others across the land to be trained as a ballet dancer, is a fairytale that has already captivated many children and young adults.

Awards

Winner of NSW Premier's Literary Award Patricia Wrightson Prize 2008 and Queensland Premier's Literary Awards: Best Children's Book 2008. Shortlisted for Nielsen BookData/ABA Book of the Year Award - Booksellers' Choice 2008.

Author description

Li Cunxin was born in 1961, in the New Village, Li Commune, near the city of Qingdao on the coast of north-east China. The sixth of seven sons in a poor rural family, Li's peasant life in Chairman Mao's communist China changed dramatically when, at the age of eleven, he was chosen by Madame Mao's cultural advisers to become a student at the Beijing Dance Academy. After a summer school in America, for which he was one of only two students chosen, he defected to the West and became a principal dancer for the Housten Ballet. Li went on to become one of the best male dancers in the world. He is now a senior manager in a major stockbroking firm and lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife Mary and their three children, Sophie, Tom and Bridie. Li's autobiography, Mao's Last Dancer has sold over 400,000 copies and has been published in over 20 countries. A children's version of the book was released in 2005.