Beijing: In a country where discussing the lives of leaders is a considered a taboo, Chinese for the first time will have an opportunity to read a political memoir of their late leader Deng Xiaoping, as his biography is expected to hit store shelves in the mainland China this year.

Written by former Harvard professor Ezra Vogelm, the book titled "Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China," is due to be released in China this year, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the SDX Joint Publishing Company, publisher of the book`s mainland edition as saying.
Deng who took over the leadership of the ruling Communist Party after the founder Mao Zedong`s death has virtually over turned the hard-line Marxian ideology by introducing reforms and opening policies radically changing China`s economic development mainly with Foreign Direct Investment, (FDI) and overseas technology. It is rare to see Chinese book publishers marketing the books authored by the foreign writers on China`s leaders and politics.
The SDX company recently announced that it has won the right to publish the mainland edition of the book, which is scheduled to debut on January 18, to mark the 21st anniversary of Deng`s 1992 south China tour.
The book, which took Vogel ten years to complete, portrays a transforming China from the perspective of Deng, focusing on the era after the inception of China`s lengthy reform and opening-up drive, Li said. Vogel is a well-known expert on China, working as the director of the Harvard East Asian Research Centre from 1972 to 1977.
He has written a plethora of books on China, as well as other east Asian countries.
PTI