father, even though he was a coma was able to have a last moment with my brother where they forgive each other and told each other they love each other and my mother and i at that moment as well so the debt is really important because people think if they can keep their life savings in some silly where we feel we will not get sick or die. it is part of life as is the holocaust or any challenge, how do you deal with this. they were lucky to be surrounded by love. >> please help me thank sonia taitz. [applause] >> you are watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2's booktv. >> up next, ben mezrich report and questions from the university of montana who founded the online brokerage company absolutepoker.com. he details the company's elise excess at one time posting

revenue of $1 million per day. in the eventual scrutiny received from the department of justice which shut it down in 2011. this program is about 40 minutes. >> good afternoon, thank you all for joining us and thank you all watching on booktv on c-span2, you are joining billions around the world. when they asked me to come here and interview ben mezrich had jumped at the chance. he is one of my favorite people in the literary world. a lot of you know the film based on his books as well as his books, the accidental billionaires' became the social network, bringing down the house became 21 and you title the book sex on the moon because you knew they would never change that title for a film. the book we are talking about who dealt their way to a billion-dollar online poker empire--and how it all came crashing down..." about how a few enterprising program players created an empire sort of. i want to begin by drawing your

attention to for my many the greatest author jacket photo since hemingway, right here. you look like someone ringo would have bought absence from so please let us welcome the great and talented mr. ben mezrich. >> thank you all for coming. it has been thankfully nice for the moment, we're not getting what. i'm so excited that john is doing this, we actually hosted a television show i don't think anyone much called the world series of black jack, he was kind of the hosted by was the black jack eckerd and we sat in a booth at the hilton hotel in vegas for a month, a few weeks, watching degenerate's compete in a high-stakes blackjack and our cameras caught some of them cheating and we watched them do unsavory things in the casino

lobby after words and i got to know been very well because as much fun as i had hosting this unlikely show with him they mess up the audio and almost all the audio from the entire tournament was lost so we had to spend six months going to malibu every weekend sitting in a tiny 4 x 4 booth recreating the excitement of watching a year-old card game together and i was already a fan of him as a writer. i came to respect him as a man and as a craftsman at how he went about making extremely infectiously readable pieces of work so it is a great honor to be here and i guess i will begin by asking for those who haven't read your book can you give us an overview and why this story through dealt their way to a billion-dollar online poker empire--and how it all came crashing down..." is about a group of fraternity brothers from the university of montana, these were regular kids, most of them were very 4, was so sore he

sold the call to buy his first car, they were montana kids and used to play poker in the basement of a local bar, one of them got the idea that putting poker online and make a lot of money and online poker hadn't started yet. there was only one company in 1999 so it was most of we have today on the internet so they build one of the first and biggest online poker sites, they moved most fraternity to costa rica which was lawless wild west craziness and they built this over a few years with a lot of setbacks into what $1 million a day business. they were essentially weeks away from ipoing party poker which was a competitor of ipo for $13 billion on the verge of that when the u.s. government decided on line poker was illegal in 2006 a bill passed which was

attached to a terrorism bill and basically said online poker would be considered illegal. these guys stage in the business until 2011 so they didn't fold them and in 2011 the department of justice rated these poker sites and they are facing a year in dean lind, one of them is living non-violent of anti get. he is not technically a fugitive. he is hiding or stay in and not returning to the u.s.. his younger brother who is another in character turned himself in and is doing 14 months in federal prison cell is a pretty wild story. includes the cheating scandal in the middle where one of the insiders turns out was cheating, so anybody who ever played online poker and was afraid someone might be cheating, there was cheating going on, they paid back the money to the people who had been cheated but as a pretty wild story and always turned on by it because it felt like a blend of 21 and the social

network. >> when you take the back story of an enterprising group of collegians, mit in 21. and hal they made a lot of money and in a certain way and all kinds of went wrong. if you consider mark zuckerberg and facebook all going on which the movie sure did. is that what drew you to it, that was a good story? >> to write a nonfiction book, what your criteria? >> i get 20 to 30 pitches a week. in the last 30 days i've gotten a dozen alone and they usually pretty crazy, not things i would write about, every college kid who does something bad will e-mail me so i get every kind of scandal or scheme you could possibly imagine. most of them are from prison, some are just out of prison but every now and then something pretty wild and this one turned me on because it was about an industry i did know anything about that vanished in one day. 9 a lot of people who had played online poker. i know costa rica was wild and

lawless ahead thrills and money i like to write about and it intrigued me, these guys built something huge and had all taken away. they were on the verge of being like mark zuckerberg and instead went to prison for being fugitives though all of that blended together but i do think of it as a blend of 21 and the social network. >> when you commit to writing a book based on a certain story that turns you on, how extensive is your research process. how much digging do you do before you begin an era of? >> i spent about six months researching. research for me is becoming a part of the story as much as i can come again on a plane and taking out with the fugitives or with 21 imus strapping money to my body going to and from vegas every weekend with the team. with mark zuckerberg i couldn't can inhabit the can down with them but i hung out with -- 6 ft. 5 a dingell when olympic rowers, their perfect, hollywood would have invented them if they did not already exist but i try

to get into the story and then i sit down and get all the law cases so everyone of these books has tens of thousands of pages of legal case work. i go through all of that and try to make sure i get it all right and then sit down and write it. >> when we first talked about this a few years that you mentioned to me your style of writing back then was lock yourself in a room, chrome--preferably a vegas hotel room and your practice was 16 pages a day if you got 16 pages done then you were allowed to have a life. >> i don't recommend it to any writers out there. it is a miserable way to live. i right in a very desperate horrible situation and i don't find writing enjoyable. at of the research and everything else about it but sitting down and actually writing is torture. anybody who is a writer knows that. i do like to lock myself in a room for many long hours. i used to do 16 pages a day, now is 12, an older, slowing down. >> they "the watchmaker's

daughter: a memoir"? >> i have two kids. as exhausting as anything can become more exhausting their writing. and is one of those things where have to be in this room until the book is done so for me anywhere from 2 to 6 months, basically round-the-clock writing as much as i can. it is intense. i'm sure a lot of you who are writers it is one of those things that is hard to describe why you are doing it, when you are doing it so when you are finished it is the greatest feeling in the world but the process is very much similar, 12 pages a day. >> do you write by handy during the researching process for your draft? >> nothing is ever by a hand. most recently i started dictating to software. i know and doing at here, but i dictated the three quarters of this book. you have to teach yourself to speak like you are riding which is the trickiest part and you go through and added it but i find it even more freeing. nothing is by hand. i'm going the opposite

direction. >> the work of finality to >> outline their incredibly necessary. they are hateful. i don't know anybody who likes riding and outlined the if you does have an outline your book gets away from you. i even outline to the point i know the page number of every chapter. so it is a very severe outline. >> do all your books get into a certain story structure? do you use the three act structure? >> guest: i write my nonfiction like a thriller. when i sit down to write it i have all the plot points, no one happens in the story and essentially outline as if it is our movie and i write it that way so you know when these big dramatic moments occur in your plot. reality fits the thriller structure. all of us live the lives but we have obstacles, and that is the three act structure. reality fit very well into a three act structure especially a story like this where these guys came from nothing and rose to a million dollars a business and

had all taken away and spiraling with drugs and they got fugitives. and -- >> guest: >> host: it sounds like a pretty fun part of your work spending time with girls and drugs and fugitives. >> guest: my wife is here. if college kids replaced in a place where there were no boundaries they were up the street from the largest for houses in the world. and in costa rica where there are 200 women working there and there is no law where they were. and a flip a bmw, the main character runs into the bushes with tequila, broken ankle and a hooker and wait for the police who he bribes. this is the world they were living in. when you get in a store like this i am a fly on the wall. very neurotic, phobic individuals so i don't dive in

the way someone else might. i go there and i watched from the background, and i try to say has involved without being involved as possible. >> host: audience thing you let yourself in with your subject? does it take a period of time for them to get past a level of performing for the guy who is going to write about them? >> when you going to restore like this you don't know if they are telling the truth, you don't know if they're trying to appear better than they are and you want to get inside and become their friend and get close to them because you want the whole story. i don't go in like a journalist with the notebook and a tape recorder. lot of people would not allow me to walk around with a tape-recorded. i go in as part of the story. hanging out with these guys. i essentially fall for the people i write about a lot, find them very fascinating. as i said i am scared of everything and they took enormous risks. they sit back and go through and what i feel is true or not true

but my methods are like method acting. i live that story. as i get older i am outgrowing the people i write about so it is getting harder to live the story. it is pretty fascinating to get inside. >> host: give me an example of a character you fell for in this book. >> guest: main character is a complex individual, scott thomas, a lot of people hate this guy. i find him fascinating. he came from a horrible backgrounds. he ended up in costa rica, then gets embroiled in a cheating scandal and keeps going and the law is passed and suddenly it becomes illegal but he is doing, sleeping with a gun under his pillow, that kind of a world that he truly believes what he's doing is not wrong, and the government runs in with that. i am fascinated by someone like that. i want, any of these stains.

no one was doing as much drugs is eyebrows were falling out and the rest of the move out of the house and living alone in a house they haven't done for two weeks. and they are not seen. mark zuckerberg is a genius. and an individual at best, people know him and find him difficult to be around. whether he screwed eduardo, no one really knows, got as close as anyone can get. the movie turns him into a very over-the-top individuals that you can't hate, a lot of people want to be that, i am fascinated by oversized individuals who live these incredible lives. my wife calls it stockholm syndrome. i lived with these guys so long i fall for the men away. you get to the heart of it by telling it through their eyes.

billionaires' to some extent through the eyes of eduardo and through the window of loss and sean parker and mark zuckerberg had written it would be a different story and you never would have heard of them. and through the eyes of the characters is more compelling and -- >> interesting what happens after your books are published and the films are made. the social network was a great adaptation, thrilling to see you on the stage of the oscars but when you consider what happened since then, with zuckerburg's ups and downs with eduardo's tax policies, makes his the covered the second most fatal character in the book, do your subjects ever take issue with you post publication with what you have done and have you ever heard what zucker byrd fought of your book? >> people did take issue with me a lot. when you write a book like this

i try to explain to the characters, people are going to love you or hate you, become bigger than you wanted to be or could just disappear. you never know how people will react. after the vote comes out after the excitement there comes a period where the main character is like that which the had never happened, not always but often. never works out necessarily exactly how they wanted to. eduardo got $2 billion because of the book and movie. i don't think mark zuckerberg would have paid him off and we'd put on the projects of the ended up with $2 billion going to singapore and not paying taxes but lives in singapore, living the life most of us would dream to live if we had $2 billion at 29. he is not a fugitive but i really feel that it is hard to prepare a character for what it is like having your life open to the world like that. i thrive to make it as easy a process as possible, let them

know what is going to happen with the book. most have read what is in the book so they know what is coming but in the end you never know how they will react. i am friends with the guys from 21 and close to most of them. eduardo cut off all legal contract with me, got restraining orders to get his $2 billion. i was told in the thing he signed which gave him that money you can never speak to ben mezrich again. for non $2 million that would never speak to ben mezrich again either. i don't know him any more but i talked to john parker and everything worked out and mark, i ran into cheryl sandberg who you know from her book, we went to college together, the same year in college so after the book and after the movie i was at a reunion and cheryl comes up to me and i'm expecting to get punched but cheryl is a wonderful person and the genius. we sat down and she said they hated me for a year, then they

went to see the movie and all facebook went to see it and they liked it and invited me to come to facebook. in the end i don't thing markings one where the other about me. i am don't think i'm in his thoughts that often anymore. hopefully he has better things to think about but it worked out great, marc looked very cool, the company did great, he was on the cover of time magazine. was a positive portrayal land younker people went to the internet because of what they saw in that movie. >> and people went in? >> guest: into the company. will be for that movie. decided to try to become mark zuckerberg. >> host: the theme of your work is young people who are skirting the ethical line. >> guest: the area between right and wrong, people taking risks who are really doing something different building a company

obsessed with the great american myth or the idea of the great american success story. college kids, right after who are willing to start big chances and do something great. >> host: don't be alarmed, c-span viewers. just look up 800 people. a louder noise came from c-span. doing it live on tape. how has what you witnessed in -- affected your sense of ethics? have you seen lines you would not cross or do you believe that a lot of lines are movable? >> guest: your goal is not to screw anybody or write a story that affects people negatively without informing them of the direction you are going to. i feel i try to write as a true story as i can but i am open about my process. i right thrillers that happen to be true. all the facts are correct as far

as i can get there, some of the dialogue is recreated but i built the story is true as i can listen journalists do not like the way i write, and nonfiction has to be an encyclopedia. and if it is someone's real life you have to be honest with it and truthful with that and not through the mud. and people do a lot of crazy things for money and have to ask these questions would be willing to do for money, and asked how long would you be willing to go to jail for $30 million? someone said you could have $30 million and go to federal prison for a year because that is what these guys might be facing turning themselves in doing a year in prison? >> the we have a show of hands? who would be willing to do a year, not state ken, up one

year, $30 million? >> seniors raising their hands. >> guest: the other ethical question i ask people from the social network two college kids in a dorm room one comes up with a brilliant idea and says to his buddy you put up a thousand dollars and you have 30% of the company and the guy who came up with the idea spend the next three years building the company all by himself, lodges and suddenly worth $30 billion. the first guy comes back and says i want my 30%. does he deserve is the present or not? that is a question i always ask. when u.s. young entrepreneurs that question they say no, he was there in the beginning and should get something but didn't build this company. venture fund people, put up $1,000. and that happened in the social network. eduardo was there in the beginning and 30% of the company for $1,000 and five years later wanted to do 30%. you get a lot of questions like

that which i am fascinated with in these stories. >> host: you mentioned some of the critiques you have taken from nonfiction writers. how do you separate truth and fact when you are writing a nonfiction work? utah about recreating dialogue. for me i do all the research and get as much information as i can so i know what happened in all the different points of the book and i sit down and write it as if i were a movie. you can take a scene like that and say they talked about facebook or real could write a dialogue with two characters talking about facebook and i choose to do that. and some like it and some don't. i feel like the truth is more than the fact. there are different points of view. eduardo is going to feel differently than mark zuckerberg, these guys to build this company still very different than the u.s. government without a doubt so depending on is point of view,

you have a different truth, if you interview the fbi agent to follow these guys making notes of them with hookers and coke and they deserve to go to jail. and building an internet company and it became illegal, they didn't know what to do at that point, and they didn't shut down. they ended up paying for it in the end and multiple points of view to a true story. >> host: do you know why the big government george bush administration decided to make online poker illegal? >> two moralizing senators. and more about politics. i'm a political comedian -- and john -- >> anti gambling. they couldn't go against gambling because we love to gamble.

>> we were lining up for lotto tickets. that is okay. and there is no rule or reason poker is wrong and the lottery is right. and for a port terrorism bill there was support terrorism bill, no one is going to vote against that because it is anti-terrorism. they attach a rider to it that made the move of money involved in online gambling if it is already illegal illegal. basically moving into an illegal gaming site became money-laundering. >> host: how many lost money on that? >> guest: probably $150 million player money, $15 billion industry disappeared in one day. there is a $15 billion industry, and the world series of poker went from 8,000 members to 800 members and built itself back up. it was a massive loss of an industry for reasons still unexplained.

they didn't go after for instance rotisserie football league because the nfl wouldn't let them because the nfl lost that stuff and they didn't go after lotteries or casinos or worse racing in new york, they didn't go after all these things you completely gamble on. go after bingo, bingo is great that you can't played poker. the funny thing about pokers poker is a game of skill. the department of justice's:lawyers pass a ruling they decided poker is not covered and not considered a legal gaming. different states have different laws. that is how it was the state of new york in the department of justice that went after these guys. >> host: giving your credit card number to a website can be risky? >> guest: when these went down all the players who lost money most of them knew they were involved in an industry that was a little bit shaky. i feel bad for everybody who lost money but giving your

credit card to an offshore bank that was and in between guide to an offer gambling company. there was stuff that was going to go on and too that was in the regulated legal industry because in the u.k. and canada and most countries in the world pretty much except for us and iran and north korea online pokers legal. and there is no problem with the. it is legal in nevada and new jersey, will slowly be legal everywhere and will be regulated. >> host: now the point of the program where you get to ask questions, and someone will bring you a microphone so be patient and take ten seconds. if you have any questions for ben mezrich please raise your hand. why wait for the first person

not to be shy. the best question that's been's home phone number. >> how are you? supposedly the next movie -- >> would you mind holding the mike to your mouth? >> the next movie based on one of your books is the rock. >> how much you have, how the movie plays out. in 21 or bringing down the house and kevin lewis. and as an author, do you find it insulting to that it would change your work of art for a movie? >> what is the first part of the question? sex on the moon was my last book about the kid who robbed nasa,

st. louis attended pounds save lives moroccans spread -- impress his girlfriend and had sex with a girl on the moon and try to sell the rock of the internet with a bizarre caper. that was sold to sony who did the social network and the friends with benefits attached, in a screenplay. i haven't heard any updates. i am not sure when or if, when you sell project hollywood you give up all control, they consult with you on the screen play, about as import as caterer. and make the movie they want to make. the goal to set it up with people you trust that you feel that you will make a good movie. when you have david finisher who wants to make a movie, do what you want, that is fantastic. you don't have any control, they show you a casting that justin timberlake is in and it turns out he is awesome. is one of those things where you

don't really know what is going to happen, don't have control, meet with the director, screenwriter, and if the screenwriter wants to do as a consultant. and an onset expert. and i changed his name because he asked me to. didn't want to be known as the black jack guy and when the movie was made wanted to be known as the black jack guy but his name was changed. they did change him to a white guy but that was a decision made when they cast it when they were auditioning people and jeff ended up being a consultant on such. of the mit kids were on set at 21 which was crazy because we were getting kicked out of casinos the movie was being shot at because they are not allowed to play blackjack anywhere. you don't have control. you have to look at two different project. i have been very lucky, the two movies that were made have been phenomenal. i liked both movies. one day i will have a bad movie made of one of my books and i'm

sure i will be upset by feel if you take that check and let them do it becomes their project. >> host: do some authors have more creative control or final say? >> guest: i am sure stephen king has say to some degree. faisal that as in in the film with a tiny budget i could be involved, i could make it myself if someone puts up the money and i would have total control. for me it is go to a big studio, sell it to people i respect and always wanted to see make a movie of one of my projects and try to get robert patton dividend is awesome. i am very commercial in that respect. i feel like the movie gets so many people to see it so your story gets to such a wide audience. whatever happens to make the movie may i am pretty happy with. with 21 we could have gone around her's route, that was a phenomenal movie about poker that very few people saw at the time because it was so intense or we could have gone the 21 route which was a much bigger movie a lot of people saw. i was cool with the the direction and they went 21 and

it was great. i am sure there are authors who have a lot more control once they reach a certain stage how they sell the project but for me so far i am a witness to whatever goes on. >> host: next question. >> what happened to the character the professor? >> in the book he is different than in the movie, not as much of a bad guy. he still runs an mit blackjack table, recruits college kids. the part in the end of 21 was not based on the book where they are running around and he ends up getting taken away by laurence fishburne's people, that didn't actually happen. in reality he disappeared for a while and came back and recruits another mit team. he came to the 21 premiere, the real guy, and he seemed to like it. overall he is still out there

playing blackjack or coaching blackjack i should say. that was the basic character. >> i am curious where in your mind the law should be free online gambling? >> i believe there is no reason online poker should be illegal. it should be regulated, there should be an age. i don't want to see high school kids play online poker but 21 or whatever they feel the right age is, regulated tax, there should be a national legal online poker, no reason you can go to a casino and play poker and not they play poker from your computer. maybe there should be limits on how much money you should be allowed to put in at a time. there should be limits on the jazz but no reason it should be regulated industry. it creates jobs, enormous amount of tax money comes out of it and it is a game of skill people play. there are a lot of people, fifteen million americans play an online poker. 10% of the country wanted to play it at some point or maybe

five%. if there is a demand, if the lottery is legal online poker should be illegal. if you want to go after all of gambling i can understand it from a moral point of view, i have no problem with gambling as long as it is controlled and regulated. that is my feeling on poker. i don't know how i feel about the lottery. i feel the lottery is more dangerous and upsetting to me than poker is because there is no skill. i enjoy it too. i and this and why maybe june to be allowed. >> host: poker i don't understand why it shouldn't be allowed. it is a game of skill. e.u. or your subjects have a problem with stories for gambling addicts? >> guest: they wanted to be regulated. a lot of countries they were regulated overseas in europe, they were regulated on who was allowed to play, certain countries would say we don't want it in the country and they would ban that country. the irs left it gray.

there was no clue as to what the federal policy was going to be. most of them would agree there should be regulation just like in a casino if you feel there's a problem, i have never been a problem where they couldn't deal with it. people are basically lying on the floor. they were supposed to take into account whether you look like you have a problem. is a hard thing to analyze. with online poker you could limit the amount of money one could play in a certain amount of time the she shouldn't be the to the back your credit card over and over again. there should be a monthly limit or something. i am not the one who is going to draft these rules and regulations. nevada has it legal, you have to be in nevada so they triangulate yourself on which has to be next to your laptop and fly on line poker from your laptop and ping your cellphone to make sure you are actually there. >> host: let freedom ring.

next question. let me ask a question while i am waiting for someone to get brave. yes? would you mind asking into the microphone? college friends who dealt their way to a billion-dollar online poker empire--and how it all came crashing down..." to become a movie? >> college friends who dealt their way to a billion-dollar online poker empire--and how it all came crashing down..." to the movie yet. we have a lot of people who have called about and it is out with kevin spacey as it, very interested in doing it. we will see where it ends up. lot of people have been looking at it and i'm sure it will get made. it just came out yesterday so it will be making the rounds. i think it would make an awesome movie. we will see what people think. >> host: you once told me you write books for people who don't like to read. can you unpack that statement? >> guest: i write for people who don't read. >> host: everyone i know who doesn't read has ben mezrich

books in their collection. >> guest: i'm competing with forms of entertainment. a lot of my readers are guys are have been, a lot are people who don't read a lot of books, they pick up this book for father's day or something and read it and realize they like to read books. a harry potter of nonfiction. i like writing books that i would like to read. i am obsessed with television and movies and anything that can distract me will distract me got like a cat with a ball. i need to write a book that would keep my attention so a lot of time my readers come to me and say this is the only book i read in the past ten years and is my favorite book. i do get that a lot. i have always found that is fascinating to me but i like a lot of my readers come to me untrammeled by reading but i find that it is a great audience and with the social network, in that book expanded my audience a

lot. that is where i started. >> you have written fiction in the past. any desire to go back? >> guest: i sold the movie to 20th-century fox and it is going to be a thriller in the da vinci code indiana jones vein. i used to write fiction, i wrote thick knot of novels none of you ever read and i wrote a tv movie based on one of my books called fatal error, starring an underwear model from melrose place a replay surgeon, very believable casting. surgeons did so many situps in between their patients. i used to write for the x files way back then. i used to write fiction. i have a children's book coming out from simon and schuster. it is about a group of sixth graders who figure out how to the carnival games so it is bringing down the house for

another level. it is a children's book for next year. >> host: any further questions from the most attractive crowd in literary park dwellers? >> guest: i want to ask about your show. when does your show -- >> host: i do a show on al gore add selectively and reviewed current tv every night at 8:00 p.m. and will you come on my show? >> guest: i will come on tomorrow. >> host: above to have you on the air. >> guest: i know little to nothing about politics. >> host: to meet a writer that admired hosting a strange tv show and as we mentioned at the top, spending months and months in the tiniest airless box in malibu. >> guest: we didn't have a single window and eating tuna

sandwiches. and we had to overdub ourselves watching blackjacks. >> host: what does she need to do? it was number 6. for six months. you are a very good actor. any more questions? i want to thank you very much. >> guest: happy to sign anything you want me to sign. i appreciate your coming out. have a great day. >> more information visit the author's website ben mezrich.com. >> making the transition from journalism to books is exhilarating and completely overwhelming and frightening but wonderful. >> why did you make that choice? >> i had long wanted to be working on a book because of the freedom allows you to dive into a topic and lose yourself and go off on tangentss and have enough time to explore it fully.

>> ted deutch scientists, living in space, the afterlife and the human digestive system. best selling author mary roche will take your calls, e-mail at facebook comments and tweets, three hours live sunday at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> tell the story, very sad story of how you discover the famine and how it affected your family. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: the second year of senior high school. it was the spring of 1959. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: my high school

which was the only school in the county was ten kilometers away. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: came to my school and told me that my father was dying. asked me to comeback home to my father. "the watchmaker's daughter: a memoir" 8 >> translator: i went to the student cafeteria asking them to start my rations of food for three days so i could take 1.5 back to my dad. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: public-school

guarantees some food. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: after i gave my father my rights i urged him to leave. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i went out to the fields and dug out wild vegetables and taking them to outlets. "the watchmaker's daughter: a memoir" h [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i did not realize my father was in serious condition. he knew he was dying so he urged me to leave and told his

neighbors don't tell even news of his death until he passes away. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i didn't return home until a few days later when my friend came with the bad news and my father was dead. >> you did not realize at the time that this was a wider problem. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: my father's death was an individual case and i thought it was because i was away from home so i was not

around to figure it out. >> when did you realize that this was a big problem and not just a problem in your village? [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: in the middle of the cultural revolution. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: in the middle of the cultural revolution the governor of my province was criticizing the party symmetry,

blaming him at a time when it disclosed this. .. >> thank you so much for being here. thank you to the folks of the library here in