Wild Swans
Three Daughters of China
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4.5 • 57 Ratings
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- $0.99
Publisher Description
OVER 13M COPIES SOLD – THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING PHENOMENON – NUMBER 8 ON SUNDAY TIMES BEST OF THE BESTSELLER LIST
Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular bestseller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival.
Through the story of three generations of women in her own family – the grandmother given to the warlord as a concubine, the Communist mother and the daughter herself – Jung Chang reveals the epic history of China's twentieth century.
Breathtaking in its scope, unforgettable in its descriptions, this is a masterpiece which is extraordinary in every way.
Reviews
'An inspiring tale of women who survived every kind of hardship, deprivation and political upheaval with their humanity intact'
Hillary Clinton, O, The Oprah Magazine
'A mesmerizing memoir'
TIME Magazine
‘It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this book'
Mary Wesley
‘Everything about “Wild Swans” is extraordinary. It arouses all the emotions, such as pity and terror, that great tragedy is supposed to evoke, and also a complex mixture of admiration, despair and delight at seeing a luminous intelligence directed at the heart of darkness'
Minette Marrin, Sunday Telegraph
‘Immensely moving and unsettling; an unforgettable portrait of the brain-death of a nation'
J. G. Ballard, Sunday Times
‘“Wild Swans” made me feel like a five-year-old. This is a family memoir that has the breadth of the most enduring social history'
Martin Amis, Independent on Sunday
‘There has never been a book like this'
Edward Behr, Los Angeles Times
About the author
Jung Chang was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She was briefly a Red Guard at the age of fourteen, and then a peasant, a ‘barefoot doctor’, a steelworker and an electrician. She came to Britain in 1978, and in 1982 became the first person from the People’s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. ‘Wild Swans’ won the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year. She lives in London.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Released in 1991, Wild Swans doesn’t just tell the saga of three generations of women; it has connected strongly with multiple generations of readers. Jung Chang’s epic blend of memoir and biography frames her unique life story, along with those of her mother and grandmother, against the dramatic transformations China underwent before, during and after the Cultural Revolution. This is a book only Chang could have written, and her combination of personal investment and comprehensive research has made this a deserved classic. She has since written several other biographies centred on China, but even decades after it first came out, Wild Swans remains a vital cultural history that highlights how women were treated across consecutive generations—from concubines and Communists to peasants and tradespeople.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bursting with drama, heartbreak and horror, this extraordinary family portrait mirrors China's century of turbulence. Chang's grandmother, Yu-fang, had her feet bound at age two and in 1924 was sold as a concubine to Beijing's police chief. Yu-fang escaped slavery in a brothel by fleeing her ``husband'' with her infant daughter, Bao Qin, Chang's mother-to-be. Growing up during Japan's brutal occupation, free-spirited Bao Qin chose the man she would marry, a Communist Party official slavishly devoted to the revolution. In 1949, while he drove 1000 miles in a jeep to the southwestern province where they would do Mao's spadework, Bao Qin walked alongside the vehicle, sick and pregnant (she lost the child). Chang, born in 1952, saw her mother put into a detention camp in the Cultural Revolution and later ``rehabilitated.'' Her father was denounced and publicly humiliated; his mind snapped, and he died a broken man in 1975. Working as a ``barefoot doctor'' with no training, Chang saw the oppressive, inhuman side of communism. She left China in 1978 and is now director of Chinese studies at London University. Her meticulous, transparent prose radiates an inner strength. Photos. BOMC alternate.
