Life and Death in Shanghai

"Life and Death in Shanghai" is an autobiography written in November 1987 by Nien Cheng from exile in the United States, and details her six-year arrest during the Cultural Revolution.

Cheng was arrested in late 1966 after Red Guards looted her home as retaliation for her wealth; for many years after the death of her husband, she worked as a senior partner for Shell in Shanghai.

The book tells the story of Cheng's arrest during the Cultural Revolution's first days and subsequent imprisonment for over six years. During that time, she was pressured to file a false confession that she was a spy for "the imperialists" (meaning the United Kingdom, as Shell Oil is a British company). Cheng refused over and over again, being tortured many times as a result (her autobiography goes into much detail, to the extent that Cheng even mentions in the epilogue that she had to put the manuscript away many times because the wounds were becoming all too haunting). She was eventually released from prison under the pretense that her behavior had showed progress.

When released from jail in 1973, she found that her daughter Meiping, who was going to school to become a film actress, had been murdered by the Red Guards, although the official response was that she committed suicide (Cheng later conducted a discreet investigation herself and found that the scenario was impossible). After being relocated from her spacious home to a mere two bedrooms (and having to share the house with another family who spied on her), Mrs. Cheng was allowed to continue with her life. She lived in China until 1980, when the political climate was warm enough for her to apply for a visa to the United States, under the pretense of visiting relatives. She never returned, first emigrating to Canada and later to Washington, D.C.