For the Amusement of Sergeant Huang: The Life of a Western Reporter in China: Politics, Publishing, and Prison

In 1983, Scott Savitt became one of the first Americans in over half a century to live in China with a Chinese family. He did so illegally, setting the tone for the life he was to lead in Beijing over the next two decades. As the youngest correspondent in China for the Los Angeles Times bureau, Savitt began writing subversive journalism that was subtle enough not to provoke the authorities. He gained unprecedented access to artists, politicians, and other dissidents who shaped the protests that ultimately erupted at Tiananmen Square. In the aftermath, Savitt launched China's first independent English-language newspaper a triumphant publication that led to his own imprisonment. Through a combination of circumstance, cunning, and recklessness, Savitt managed to live through experiences that revealed China to him. For the Amusement of Sergeant Huang is both his love letter and a mordant critique of the country that possessed him.