The astonishing story of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, who became one of Hong Kong’s leading activists for democracy and is China’s most famous political prisoner.

Jimmy Lai escaped mainland China when he was twelve years old, at the height of a famine that killed tens of millions. In Hong Kong, he hustled; no work was beneath him, and he often slept on a table in a clothing factory where he did odd jobs. At twenty-one, he was running a factory. By his mid-twenties, he owned one and was supplying sweaters and shirts to some of the biggest brands in the United States, from Polo to The Limited. His ideas about retail led him to create Giordano in 1981, and with it “fast fashion.” A restless entrepreneur, as Giordano prepared to go public, he was thinking about a dining concept that would disrupt Hong Kong’s fast-food industry. But then came the Tiananmen Square democracy protest and the massacre of 1989.

His reaction to the violence was to enter the media business to push China toward more freedoms. He started a magazine, Next, to advocate for democracy in Hong Kong. Then, just two years before the city was to return to Chinese control, he founded the Apple Daily newspaper. Its mix of bold graphics, gossip, local news, and opposition to the Chinese Communist Party was an immediate hit. For more than two decades, Lai used Apple and Next as part of a personal push for democracy—in weekly columns, at rallies and marches, and, memorably, sitting in front of a tent during the 2014 Occupy Central movement.