Thomas Christensen

John T. Downey

Jack Downey

In 1952, John T. “Jack” Downey, a twenty-three-year-old CIA officer from Connecticut, was shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. The pilots died in the crash, but Downey and his partner Richard “Dick” Fecteau were captured by the Chinese. For the next twenty years, they were harshly interrogated, put through show trials, held in solitary confinement, placed in reeducation camps, and toured around China as political pawns. Other prisoners of war came and went, but Downey and Fecteau’s release hinged on the United States acknowledging their status as CIA assets. Not until Nixon’s visit to China did Sino-American relations thaw enough to secure Fecteau’s release in 1971 and Downey’s in 1973. Lost in the Cold War is the never-before-told story of Downey’s decades as a prisoner of war and the efforts to bring him home. Downey’s lively and gripping memoir—written in secret late in life—interweaves horrors and deprivation with humor and the absurdities of captivity. He recounts his prison experiences: fearful interrogations, pantomime communications with his guards, a 3,000-page overstuffed confession designed to confuse his captors, and posing for “show” photographs for propaganda purposes. Through the eyes of his captors and during his tours around China, Downey watched the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the drastic transformations of the Mao era. In interspersed chapters, Thomas J. Christensen, an expert on Sino-American relations, explores the international politics of the Cold War and tells the story of how Downey and Fecteau’s families, the CIA, the U.S. State Department, and successive presidential administrations worked to secure their release.

The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW

Lost in the Cold War

This fully bilingual (Spanish/English) anthology of Latin American literature showcases the region's enormous vitality and variety of writing. New World/New Words includes selections by widely celebrated writers such as Gabriel Garc­a M¡rquez, Julio Cort¡zar, and Senel Paz, as well as work by emerging authors just beginning to make their mark in the English-speaking world. The collection features many of today's leading translators, several of whom are also distinguished poets and writiers. New World/New Words makes the literature of Latin America available to those who want to sample its scope and depth, and includes works published for the first time in English. With original introductions by the translators that focus on voice, tone, rhythm, context, and the role of the translator, New World / New Words offers a unique window on the translator's art while presenting an exciting cross-section of the latest Latin American writing. This book is the initial volume in a new series, Two Lines World Library, which will spotlight literature of different regions around the globe. "These authors are still being discovered by readers outside their linguistic realm and in so many cases they are offereing something really new. . . . Let the reader turn his or her mind loose on these pieces--the best and the new that has come out of Latin America."--from the Foreword by Gregory Rabassa Thomas Christensen's translations include works by Alejo Carpentier, Louis-Ferdinand C©line, Julio Cort¡zar, Laura Esquivel,a nd Carlos Fuentes. Formerly the director of Mercury House and a seinor editor at North Point Press, he is now director of publications at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Featuring Classic Authors and New Voices Manlio Argueta Sigfredo Ariel Ran© Ariza Edgar Brau Pura L³pez Colom© Julio Cort¡zar Estela Davis Fernando del Paso Luisa Futoransky Francisco Hern¡ndez David Huerta Guillermo Cabrera Infante B¡rbara Jacobs Mirko Lauer M³nica Lav­n Gabriel Garc­a M¡rquez Pablo Neruda Senel Paz Christina Peri Rossi Luisa Valenzuela Jorge Volpi

Recent Writing from the Americas : a Bilingual Anthology

New World, New Words

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Kaz Tsuruta

Bridge to Understanding, commemorating the opening of the new Asian Art Museum in the spring of 2003, is a comprehensive introduction to the museum and its collections. The book traces the history of both the museum and its new home, the former main public library in San Francisco's Civic Center; discusses architect Gae Aulenti's transformation of the dark, gloomy library into a bright, dynamic modern museum; and leads the reader on a unique exploration of the galleries, featuring room-by-room discussions of some of the museum's most intriguing (and until now most seldom displayed) works, presented here in high-quality, full-color, full-page reproductions.

Thomas Christensen

About

Books

Join the club