Correcting ‘Chinese Shadows’

To the Editors:

Since the excerpts you printed (NYR, May 26) from Simon Leys’s forthcoming book Chinese Shadows were based on uncorrected proof copy, they contained a few small errors that are corrected in the book itself but that regrettably were not fixed in time for your publication. The first is typographical: in footnote four, the date for the Lei Feng campaign should of course be 1964, not 1954. And in the paragraph a little further on where Mr. Leys discusses the conventions of Chinese Communist historiography, he has made a correction in his reference to Lin Piao, which should read: “Lin Piao, for example, who is one of the few leaders who could claim to have experienced childhood poverty, has gratuitously been given a wealthy capitalist background.”

Elisabeth Sifton

Senior Editor

The Viking Press

New York, New York