Frank Dikötter


Frank Dikötter is a Dutch historian who specialises in modern China. Dikötter has been Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006. Before relocating to Hong Kong, he was Professor of the Modern History of China at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Work

Frank Dikötter is the author of The People's Trilogy, three books that document the impact of communism on the lives of ordinary people in China on the basis of new archival material. The first volume, titled Mao's Great Famine, won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, Britain's most prestigious book award for non-fiction, in 2010. The second installment, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution, 1945-1957, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2014. The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976 concludes the trilogy and was shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize in 2017.

Awards