According to Eastday.com on Sunday, the first volume of the biography of Hu Yaobang, former chief of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has been printed in time to commemorate the 90th anniversary of his birth.

"We believe that his achievements and moral character are worth being forever remembered," said Zhang Ding, 83, one of the five biographers, all of whom used to work under Hu.

Produced by the People's Publishing House, the volume focuses on Hu’s involvement in the Long March, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the Liberation War, covering his life to the end of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

Staff at Xinhua Bookstore in Beijing told China.org.cn today that they didn’t know exactly when it would be on sale, but that it would be “soon.”

The authors have spent more than ten years on the three-volume biography, which comprises 36 chapters – 900,000 Chinese characters.

"We have no idea how to use computers, so the story was handwritten word by word," said Zhang.

(China Daily, China.org.cn November 22, 2005)