Cheng Lei

by Cheng Lei

The extraordinary true story of journalist Cheng Lei whose life was abruptly transformed when she was detained in China on false charges of espionage.


Journalist Cheng Lei spent more than three gruelling years in a Beijing prison after being wrongly accused of espionage. Harrowing, fierce and often darkly humorous, her memoir is about the power of the human spirit; bravery in the face of cruelty and pettiness; the consolations of letters, music and books; and how unexpected friendships and the love of family can unlock the courage we all have within us to prevail.

In August 2020, Cheng Lei was the precise and polished anchor of China's government-run, English-language Global Business TV show, familiar to millions of viewers. A veteran business journalist, the Chinese-born Australian mother of two young children was at the pinnacle of her career when eight words texted to a friend led to devastating consequences.

Arriving for work one morning, Lei was met by officers from the notorious Ministry of State Security. After searching her apartment, they blindfolded her and drove her to a secret location. Detained, isolated and interrogated, she was cut off from all contact with her family and friends. She simply disappeared from TV screens, her flat, her life.

Lei was eventually coerced into agreeing to a five-year prison term in a country she loved but no longer recognised. On the outside, her story triggered a desperate fight for her release, a diplomatic row and global news. On the inside, her own struggle for freedom and her sanity in the face of the inconceivable had just begun.

It would be ten months before Lei saw her lawyer, a year and a half before a 90-minute show trial, more than two years before she would briefly hear the voices of her children, and three years and two months before she saw the entirety of the sky again - after her release was secured and she made it home to Australia.

It's only through losing freedom that we learn to truly appreciate it. When our canvas is bare we celebrate one drop of colour. Cheng Lei, TED2025

Genres: Australia, Biography, Nonfiction, Audiobook, China

Paperback

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a prison memoir this was surprisingly full of (dark) humour. Some truly heart wrenching moments listening to the audiobook, hearing the emotion and deep pain in Cheng’s voice.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cheng endured three and a half years of detention i. China, and here she details that experience, from the first 6 months in the highly restrictive, entirely indoor solitary detention, to the following three years in a cell with three other prisoners. Cheng goes into much detail about the experience, the weaponisation of tedium, constraint and inadequate nutrition. The Chinese facilities are clean, the food meets caloric standards, they don't indulge in practices designated as torture, and yet these is a deeply damaging trauma. The cells are kept isolated so prisoners we only their cellmates. So sunlight, vitamins and entertainment are scant. This is familiar from many Western prisons isolation tactics as well. Humans can constantly innovate ways to inflict suffering, even as some are banned.
The book has little political analysis in it. Cheng Leavens the accounts of tedium with her characteristic wisecrack humour, but this doesn't always succeed in varying the monotony of reading about the torture of tedium.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraordinary tale of survival showing a massive inner strength. Hard to imagine being treated the way she was by anyone. Incarcerated for seemingly scant justification if any. So lucky to live in my country. So sad for her mother’s pain, her children & Cheng Lei’s own suffering of course but I think her mother suffered so much. Cheng Lei seems to understand this too.
Amazing women to have endured this ordeal

[Maria Liuzzi-Scalpelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves more than 5 stars! This star rating doesn’t even come close to justifying how worthy Cheng Lei’s memoir is of a 100 star rating! I highly recommend this book to everyone! I felt every emotion with her! It made me see Australia’s democracy, land of freedom with a new open eyes. As a daughter of a migrants always longing for the motherland, even though I was born here, this book has made me appreciate how lucky we are to live in this incredible country, simply because we are able to free on so many different levels. Thank you Cheng Lei. I am so sorry you were a pawn in your motherland’s games. You didn’t deserve any of what happened to you. I am so sorry as a fellow woman and mother for the loss of years with your beautiful children. Thank you for opening my eyes and heart to your story. We are truly blessed to have you back in Australia. May you slowly rebuild and find the strength, peace and happiness you deserve.

[Sarah Wilkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because it's on the list of recommended reading for Seniors in Queensland schools. And I'm very glad that it is.

Hopefully every student who is assigned this will read it to the very final page because the author has a few powerful messages:
- Read, read, read, read read. Read because it gives us solace. Read because it gives you greater knowledge of our world.
- Write! Write letters. Write to think. Write because it makes connections. Write because our writing can make a difference.
- Australia is a wonderful, free country where people are friendly, supportive and hard-working.
We have a lot be be thankful for in Australia. If you're not sure about this, then read Cheng Lei's memoir.

[Robin Bower · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an honest, heartfelt and authentic story of Chinese/Australian Cheng Lei who was thrown into detention for nearly three years in China. Her crime? Sending an embargoed press release a few minutes before its due date, and supposedly being a spy. She wasn’t. It shows the extreme isolation and loneliness she felt in a place of uncertainty and frustration. Her resilience proved to be her way to survival. Highly recommended.

[Dennis Cordato · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cheng Lei’s memoir is though-provoking and eye opening about how lucky we are to be living in Australia. Let’s hope this never changes as we are seeing loss of freedom start to appear in Western places I never in my wildest dreams thought it would. Cheng Lei’s inner strength to mentally survive her ordeal is evident in every page. She is truly inspirational.

[Georgia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining but not as groundbreaking as I thought it would be. Interesting insight into a different side of China. I’ve heard her on the radio and she is fun, maybe she should do a talk tour instead.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Loretta Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an inspiration and one outstanding woman!

[Meredith Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary memoir, painful, heartbreaking, funny & sad.
A woman of incredible inner strength.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very courageous and feisty

[Rachel Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story, worth reading.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very frank account of the treatment Cheng Lei received after being arrested in China. The book's greatest strength is the amount of detail it provides on the harsh conditions in Chinese jails, with Cheng Lei repeatedly noting that she received much better treatment than most prisoners due to advocacy from Australian embassy staff. She very frankly discusses the awful conditions she endured and the impact this had on her and the other prisoners.

The book would have benefited from better editing though. While the interpersonal conflicts Cheng Lei describes were the result of the unhuman conditions and part of what made the experience so awful, I found the blow by blow accounts of squabbling between prisoners to be excessive. It would have also been interesting if the book had devoted more attention to the campaign by the Australian government and her family to free her - Cheng Lei notes areas where this was effective and areas where it failed, but only in passing. Possibly she chose to not write about this though to avoid compromising efforts to free other Australians held in Chinese prisons.

[David Irving · Rating 3 out of 5]

An inspiring story of endurance and resilience.