Mao's Last Dancer (Cunxin) - Author Bio

Author Bio 
• Birth—1961
• Where—Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
• Education—Beijing Dance Academy
• Currently—Melbourne, Australia

Li Cunxin was born in a village near the city of Qingdao, in northern China. At the age of eleven, he was selected by Madame Mao's cultural advisers to become a student at the Beijing Dance Academy. When he was eighteen, he was chosen to perform with the Houston Ballet, leading to his dramatic defection to the United States. Li performed as a principal dancer with the Houston Ballet for 16 years, becoming one of the world's top male ballet dancers. In 1995 he moved to Melbourne Australia, where he became principal artist with the Australian Ballet, He lives in Australia with his wife, ballet dancer Mary McKendry, and their three children. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia.)

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At age thirty-four, Li started to plan his next career after dancing. He enrolled in accounting and financial courses. In 1997 he began his study at the Australian Securities Institute by correspondence with a view to becoming a stockbroker. For his final two years with the Australian Ballet, he rose at 5am to start ballet training, then racing to the stock exchange by 8am to work as a stockbroker until noon. By the time he joined the rest of the Australian Ballet dancers for rehearsals, he had already put in a full day's work (Li is now a senior manager at one of the biggest stockbroking firms in Australia).

Mao's Last Dancer, published in 2003, immediately hit the top of Australia’s best sellers list—eventually taking the #1 slot for non-fiction and winning Australia's Book of the Year Award and the US's Christopher Award. It was also short-listed for the National Biography Award. With over 30 printings, Mao's Last Dancer remained on the top-10 bestseller List for over 18 months, was sold in over 20 countries, and in 2009 became the basis for a feature film. (Adapted from the author's website.)