Book Description

A February Indie Next Pick, A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, A Newsweek & Refinery 29 Most Anticipated Book of 2021, A Finalist for the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, In 2012, when Julie Keith opened a package of Halloween decorations she had purchased at a big box store near her home in Oregon, something shocking fell out: an SOS letter, handwritten in broken English by the prisoner who had made and packaged the items. The letter's author, Sun Yi, was a Chinese engineer turned political prisoner, an ordinary citizen forced into grueling labor for campaigning for the freedom to join a forbidden meditation movement. He was imprisoned alongside petty criminals, civil rights activists, and tens of thousands of others the Chinese government had decided to "reeducate," carving foam gravestones and stitching clothing for more than fifteen hours a day. In this page-turning and urgent book, investigative journalist Amelia Pang pulls back the curtain on the human cost of the cheap consumer products Americans take for granted. She goes deep inside a closely guarded network of laogai-forced labor camps-to tell the stories of men and women like Sun, as well as members of the persecuted Uyghur minority group, whose abuse and mass internment have provoked international outcry. Impeccably researched and bravely reported, Made in China is ultimately a call to action, urging us to think more critically about and demand more answers from the companies we patronize. Book jacket.