This year marks the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Long March of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. To commemorate this great event, the Foreign Languages Press released the English edition of Sketches on the Long March on September 10.
The book has been included by the Press and Publications Administration of China in the catalogue of key books in honor of the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Long March undertaken by the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
In 1982, the Foreign Languages Press published the English edition of Sketches on the Long March, for which this publication has made a new design. This book collects 24 sketches drawn by General Huang Zhen during the Long March with descriptions of each. These sketches, though completed hurriedly on paper of different sizes and colors, depending on what Huang could find at the time, are drawn professionally, with lively characters, and condensed and vivid scenes. They allow readers not only to see the difficulties and hardships the Red Army encountered in the Long March, but also to feel the optimism and perseverance the Red Army displayed at that time.
This book is a priceless album on the Red Army's Long March, with a preface by Xiao Hua, a renowned General of the People's Republic of China, and an introduction to the historical background by A Ying, an eminent writer and literary critic of the People's Republic of China.
This book serves as not only a record of a great and unparalleled historical event but also a reminder of an unyielding revolutionary spirit, which was the original intention of the first edition and no less that of the present reprinted edition.
(China.org.cn October 20, 2006)