The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician is a memoir by Li Zhisui, one of the physicians to Mao Zedong, former Chairman of the Communist Party of China, which was first published in 1994. Li had emigrated to the United States in the years after Mao's death. The book describes the time during which Li was Mao's physician, beginning with his return to China after training in Australia, through the height of Mao's power to his death in 1976 including the diverse details of Mao's personality, sexual proclivities, party politics and personal habits. The book was well received, with reviews praising it for being corroborated by other sources and giving a detailed, fly on the wall perspective on Mao's personal life. The book was also controversial and ultimately banned in the People's Republic of China. The archive about Mao is strictly confidential and controlled by General Office of the Chinese Communist Party. Background and publication Li Zhisui was Mao Zedong's personal physician for twenty-two years, and Li claimed that during this time he became a close confidant of the Chinese leader. After emigrating to the United States, Li wrote The Private Life of Chairman Mao based on his memories of his time with Mao. The biography was based on his recollection of journals he had kept, which he had burned during the Cultural Revolution. The original manuscript was written by Li, translated from his native Chinese into English by Professor Tai Hung-chao, then edited by Anne F. Thurston. The foreword to the book was written by Professor Andrew J. Nathan of Columbia University, and the book was published by Random House in 1994. Along with the Random House publication, a Chinese language edition was released by the Chinese Times Publishing Company of Tapei. The book was banned by the government in the People's Republic of China, as have many works criticising Mao on a personal level, and they subsequently also publicly denounced both the book and a BBC documentary that used it as a basis. After publication, several people criticized the publication process. Tai claimed that the English-language publisher, Random House, wanted more sensationalist elements to the book than Li had provided, in particular requesting more information about Mao's sexual relationships. Despite Li's own protestations, they overruled him, and put such claims in the published text. Li claimed that Thurston cut substantial parts of his