Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- 1. To live under the Sun -- 2. Exchanging leather shoes for straw sandals -- 3. The crown -- 4. A spark of fire -- 5. Shattered jade -- 6. Lampligh in the snowy fields -- 7. The white-haired girl of Tilanqiao -- 8. Blood letters home -- Afterword.

Blood letters tells the astonishing story of Lin Zhao, a Chinese poet and journalist arrested by the authorities in 1960 and executed eight years later, at the height of the Cultural revolution. The only Chinese citizen known to have openly and steadfastly opposed communism under Mao, she rooted her dissent in her Christian faith, and expressed it by writing in her own blood, at times on her clothes and on cloth torn from her bed sheets.