Li Cunxin's 'The Lucky Son' arrives 14 years after Mao's Last Dancer

By Marcus Bennett

Li Cunxin's second memoir, The Lucky Son, arrives in bookshops this month, fourteen years after his first. The renowned Chinese Australian ballet dancer and former artistic director of Queensland Ballet published Mao's Last Dancer in 2003 to phenomenal international success, then spent more than a decade completing its follow-up.

The Lucky Son picks up where the 2003 memoir left off. Cunxin writes about sacrifices made by his wife, his years at a stockbroker, and his success leading Queensland Ballet, an ensemble he steered through years of artistic growth. The book traces the private cost of a public career and the family that absorbed its pressure.

Speaking from his Brisbane home, Cunxin explained how the sequel nearly never happened. "Actually, I had signed a contract with Penguin Random House for a follow-up," he said. The publisher expected a quicker book. The job at Queensland Ballet intervened and the manuscript waited.

Why did the sequel take fourteen years?

The original concept centred on Cunxin's brothers and friends in China. "It was going to be about the lives of my brothers and friends in China, and the ways the country has changed over time," Cunxin said. He accepted the artistic director post. The manuscript waited on a shelf.

Queensland Ballet demanded his full attention for years. The writing paused in its tracks. "I don't think they were expecting [the sequel] to take 14 years!" Cunxin said, referring to the publishers who had commissioned the project so many years before.

The pause reshaped the book's subject. What began as a portrait of family members in China became a record of Cunxin's own decade in Australia. The author found himself living the sequel before he had written it.

What does The Lucky Son add to the first book?

The 2003 memoir achieved phenomenal international success. Mao's Last Dancer made Cunxin a recognised figure beyond the ballet world. The new volume documents the years the first book could not.

The Lucky Son addresses Cunxin's marriage, his time in finance, and his leadership of Queensland Ballet. The book carries the same premise that shaped the first volume: personal choice weighed against family expectation, and the long cost of leaving one country for another. The author's wife appears throughout, and her role anchors the new narrative.

What does the delay reveal about Cunxin's priorities?

The fourteen-year gap speaks to a writer who placed institutional duty above personal narrative. Cunxin chose the company over the manuscript, and Queensland Ballet's trajectory during his tenure reflects that focus. He served as artistic director for more than a decade.

The Lucky Son is published this month by Penguin Random House. For readers who encountered Cunxin through his 2003 memoir, the sequel arrives as the second volume of an autobiography no one expected to last so long.