Leader's daughter starts second epic

DENG Rong, the youngest daughter of China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, has started work on the second volume of her best-selling biography of her father.

Ms Deng, who writes under the pen name ''Mao Mao,'' told the Shanxi Youth newspaper she was gathering reference materials for the book and expected it to be completed within the next couple of years.

It will focus on the latter half of Mr Deng's life, a period in which he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution before finally taking absolute control of the Communist Party in 1976.

Ms Deng described her father's later years as ''the brightest and most glorious chapter'' in his life.

The first volume, published last August, has already reportedly sold more than 20 million copies. Most were bought up by government offices and work units eager to show their enthusiasm for China's ''chief architect of reform''.

The new biography would rely to a greater extent on Ms Deng's personal experience rather than historical documents and the memories of her parents which formed the basis of the first volume, she said.