In August 1966, a 14-year-old boy in Beijing is thrust into violence and chaos as the Cultural Revolution begins to blaze across China. Wei Yang Chao tells a riveting story: how rebels attacked and publicly humiliated his family, upended his education, and sent him out into a country rendered unrecognizable by violence and radical ideology. At heart a gentle boy, when he is swept up by the Red Guards he finds himself at the center of a bloody revolution. After mass rallies at Tiananmen Square, he witnesses attacks on teachers and professors, and the disintegration of his parents' lives as tolerance and freedom begin to crumble and he himself is cast into exile. Red Fire gives readers the fascinating and unprecedented account of a young survivor—a story told with real force and heartbreaking honesty.