Anhua "Ann" Gao (born 1949)[1] is a Chinese-born British author of To The Edge of the Sky, published 2000, a best-selling autobiographical account of her and her family's life in Maoist China from 1926 until her escape to the West in 1994.
As a child, Gao was a diligent student, and her parents' influence as well as her hard study helped her become a Young Pioneer and a Red Guard.
As a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, Gao joined the PLA to avoid being sent to the countryside for reform through hard labor, the fate of millions of other young Chinese men and women.
[2] In 1994, Gao moved to England to be with her British husband, whom she met via a written correspondence following an advertisement placed in the UK's Saga magazine.
[2] In 2000, as a British citizen, Gao published her memoir of her life's experiences under Mao's regime, To The Edge Of The Sky,[2] stating that she "wanted the world to know the truth about China" (dustjacket).