Books highly critical of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong are the talk of the town in Japan this year, the 30th anniversary of his death.

The books, translated into Japanese, include "Mao: The Unknown Story," by Jung Chang and her husband, Jon Halliday, who spent more than 10 years writing it.

Chang also wrote the best-seller "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China," first published in 1992, which told how three generations of women in her family lived through the tumultuous changes in China during the 20th century.