Fly, Wild Swans
My Mother, Myself and China
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 13 Jan 2026
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- 25,99 €
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- Pre-Order
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- 25,99 €
Publisher Description
The magnificent follow-up to Wild Swans, the multimillion copy, internationally bestselling sensation that traces the history of modern China through the true stories of three generations of courageous women in one family.
“AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN MY GRANDMOTHER became the concubine of a warlord general . . .” So begins Jung Chang’s epic family memoir, Wild Swans, which defines a generation. The book ends in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping opened the door of Communist China, and Jung—twenty-six years old and unstoppably curious, despite years of brainwashing— seized the propitious moment and became one of the first Chinese to leave the tightly sealed country and come to the West. Fly, Wild Swans chronicles her journey and that of her family, along with that of China, as it rose from a decrepit and isolated state to a world power challenging American dominance.
During those decades, although she lives in the West, Jung’s life intertwines with her native land in unexpected ways, a rare relationship made more complex because all her books are banned there. Her family story mirrors the ups and downs of China’s transformation, right up to today, as it enters another watershed. Chairman Xi Jinping’s attempt to return China to the anti-American Maoist past has a devastating impact on Jung’s life: She is unable to go to her mother’s deathbed.
Fly, Wild Swans is Jung’s love letter and emotional tribute to her extraordinary mother. Profoundly moving, it is filled with drama, love, curiosity and incredible history—both personal and global. Told in Jung’s clear, honest and compelling voice, it is memoir writing at its best.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Chang (Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister) parallels China's political upheavals with the evolution of her and her mother's relationship in this powerful memoir. Born in 1952 Yibin to an influential Communist couple who were frequently imprisoned for speaking out against Mao Zedong, Chang won a scholarship to London in 1978 to study Western culture as party leader Deng Xiaoping opened borders and attempted economic reforms. Inspired by her mother's tenacity and willingness to confront CCP officials over her father's 1967 imprisonment, Chang reveled in her newfound freedom, earning a doctorate in linguistics and writing extensively on China's history. Much of the account examines how her work brought Chang closer to, then further away from, her mother: after the success of Chang's 1991 memoir Wild Swans, the two bonded over their shared understanding of China's past and their vision for its future, and as Chang made bombshell discoveries about Mao while writing a 2006 biography of the former chairman, her mother shielded her from blowback. After current president Xi Jinping ramped up censorship, however, in the late 2010s Chang's mother stopped allowing family visits to China to protect Chang from imprisonment. Edifying, heartbreaking, and infuriating, this is tough to shake.
