The Last Man: A Biography of Xi Jinping
Who is the real Xi Jinping, and how did he get where he is? Drawing on nearly two decades of on-the-ground reporting across every province and region of China, Lucy Hornby traces the career and mindset of the country's most powerful leader in a generation.
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The Last Man explores the career and mindset of Xi Jinping, China's powerful leader. Drawing on Chinese- and Western-language sources — including official Party materials, oral histories, and years of her own on-the-ground reporting — Lucy Hornby traces how Xi rose through provincial politics to the top of the Communist Party, and what that reveals about the man steering China's future.
Lucy Hornby
Lucy Hornby is an award-winning journalist who lived in China for close to twenty years, most recently as deputy bureau chief for the Financial Times in Beijing, and before that as a correspondent for Reuters. A fluent Mandarin speaker, she has reported from every province and region in China, on subjects ranging from elite politics and the U.S.–China trade war to environmental pollution and energy policy. Her investigative reporting won the 2018 SOPA award for excellence in business reporting. She was a 2020 Nieman Fellow at Harvard and is currently a non-resident Senior Associate with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS.
Full Bio →Speaking
Available for keynotes, panels, and moderated conversations on Xi Jinping, Chinese politics, and two decades of on-the-ground reporting.
Booking info →Selected Writing
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Sept. 3, 2025The Mother, the Son and the War
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May 29, 2025The Life of Saint Xi
