In October 1934, the Chinese Red Army found itself surrounded by a million Nationalist soldiers and facing annihilation. Rather than surrender, 86,000 soldiers of the Red First Army, led by the young Mao Zedong, embarked on an epic journey. Dubbed the “Long March,” their amazing trek—4,000 miles on foot in a single year—burnished the image of Mao and the Chinese Communists worldwide. But what is less well known is that among the 86,000 who began the Long March were 30 dogged and determined women. Through eleven provinces, over China’s most difficult terrain, they crossed dozens of raging rivers, scaled treacherous ice-covered peaks on the Tibetan Plateau, and waded through capricious bogs of endless quicksand. They had emerged from domestic servitude to take on important roles as soldiers and reformers. They recruited porters and troops, gathered food, organized stretcher teams, and were responsible for communicating to the peasants and tribesmen encountered along the way. Throughout, they survived ambushes and bombings while grappling with severe hunger and thirst, typhoid fever, dysentery, lice, and the births of half a dozen children—all of whom had to be abandoned. Fewer than 10,000 of the original group would survive. Incredibly, almost all the women were among them.
 
In UNBOUND: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival, bestselling author Dean King tells the story of the Long March through the eyes of these courageous women, who formed indelible bonds through the hardships of a devastating trail. King, author of the acclaimed Skeletons on the Zahara and master storyteller of adventure narratives, is in top form again in UNBOUND, which is based on his extensive research in historical archives and across China. To gather the facts, he trekked in the Snowy Mountains and high-altitude swamps of northwestern Sichuan—the deadliest section of the Long March (detailed in his feature article in the April 2010 issue of Outside magazine)—and interviewed the last surviving woman Long Marcher who trekked with Mao.

“A terrific feminist story and a significant document of this incredible human feat.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“This is a remarkable tale, by turns thrilling, inspiring, and heartbreaking.”
—Ed Jocelyn, author of The Long March

Dean King is an award-winning author of nonfiction books. A former contributing editor to Men’s Journal, King has written for National Geographic Adventure, Outside, Esquire, Travel + Leisure, New York, and the New York Times, among other publications. His books include the bestselling Skeletons on the Zahara, which was the basis of a two-hour History Channel special documentary and is currently being developed as a feature film by Independent Films (London), and the highly acclaimed Patrick O’Brian companion books A Sea of Words (1995), Harbors and High Seas (1996), and Every Man Will Do His Duty (1997). His biography Patrick O’Brian: A Life Revealed (2000) was a Daily Telegraph book of the year.