Talented Father

What Xi Jinping Learned From His Father

Joseph Torigian | China Books Review | 12th June 2025

When Xi Jinping became leader of the CCP in 2012, moderates in the party hoped that he would be a reformist voice like his father before him. Xi Zhongxun was purged from the party several times because of his views. It soon emerged that his son had learned a different lesson: “My father entrusted me with two things: don’t persecute people and tell the truth. The first is possible, while the second is not” (2,800 words)

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The Talented Ms. Highsmith

Elena Gosalvez Blanco | Yale Review | 9th June 2025

The subheading of this piece alone thrills and intrigues: "I worked for the novelist in her final months. I thought she wanted to kill me." Highsmith was in her 70s, sick with lung cancer, and did not like people. This writer became her live-in assistant at her Brutalist house in Switzerland. Duties included grocery shopping, cat feeding, using as little electricity as possible, and being screamed at about Ernest Hemingway (6,400 words)