The Samuel Johnson Prize 2011 - winner
Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter was announced as the winner of the 2011 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize on Wednesday 6th July. In the book, Dutch academic Frank Dikötter, chronicles an era in Chinese history much speculated about but never before fully documented.
The announcement was made by chair of the judges, Ben Macintyre, at an awards ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Ben Macintyre commented, "This meticulous account of a brutal manmade calamity is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th century. With access to hitherto hidden archives, Frank Dikötter has created a harrowing, superbly-written indictment of Mao's disastrous revolutionary experiment that led to the unnecessary deaths of 45 million Chinese people."
