Cultural Revolution: John Pomfret at Harvard's Fairbanks Center tomorrow

Washington Post reporter John Pomfret was one of the first American exchange students to attend Nanjiing University in 1981, and he returned to China eight years later as a journalist, which led him to witness first-hand the blood shed at Tiananmen Square eight years later. His Chinese Lessons: A Journey Between Past and Present is a readable account of modern Chinese history. Fluent in Chinese himself, and having immersed himself in the lives of five former classmates, Pomfret’s descriptions of post-Mao China are aided in part by the personal conversations and diary entries he inserts into the text, but the book’s main draw are the clear-eyed discoveries he makes about both the country and its people. He’ll read tomorrow at the Harvard University Fairbanks Center, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge | 12:30 pm | free | 617.495.4570.