Yang Jisheng of China has been awarded the 2013 Manhattan Institute Hayek Prize for his book Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962. Jisheng’s 2013 Hayek Prize lecture is titled “How Hayek Helped Me Understand China’s Tragedy.” Here is a photo of Jisheng at the Manhattan Institute Hayek Prize event. Jisheng was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal in advance of the presentation of the award. From the interview:
“This book had a huge impact on me,” Jisheng says, holding up his dog-eared Chinese translation of Friedrich Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom.” Hayek’s book, he explains, was originally translated into Chinese in 1962 as “an ‘internal reference’ for top leaders,” meaning it was forbidden fruit to everyone else. Only in 1997 was a redacted translation made publicly available, complete with an editor’s preface denouncing Hayek as “not in line with the facts,” and “conceptually mixed up.”
Yang Jisheng was interviewed about his book and the Chinese famine by John Batchelor on The John Batchelor Show.
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- Unforgettable Economics Lessons in Tombstone (economicsone.com)
- How Hayek Helped Me Understand China’s Tragedy (realclearmarkets.com)
- Banned ‘Tombstone’ Author Receives Literary Prize in New York (theepochtimes.com)
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