This book is a translation in Tamil of Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow (1905-72), which made him world famous. An American journalist, who went to China in 1928, Snow worked as a correspondent to a number of journals and also as a lecturer in Peking University.

In 1936 he journeyed to Northwest China where the communists had set up the Soviet Government. He was the first westerner to set foot there.

During his stay he travelled all over and saw for himself how the communists lived and worked. He interviewed Mao Tse Tung, Chou En Lai, Lin Biao Chu Teh and numerous other leaders, cadres and ordinary people.

Based on what he saw and heard he wrote this classic of an oral history in 1937. This translation is of the 1972 Pelican edition without the index.

Besides the 1937 text condensed suitably to exclude tedious accounts the revised edition has chronology of the Chinese revolutions from the opium war to 1971, an epilogue written in 1944, chapter notes, further interviews with Mao, biographical notes on 100 leading communists updated up to 1971 and an extensive bibliography.

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