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Wild Swans

By Jung Chang

(142)

| Audio Cassette | 9780745165257

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Book Description

Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on Continue

Critics

Grandmother’s Footsteps

Jung Chang’s grandmother, Yu Fang, walked ‘like a tender young willow in a spring breeze’, meaning that she could only totter because her feet had been bound and the arches crushed with a stone. If this was not done, a girl would be exposed to the co ... (read full critics)

lrb published on Mon, 6 Sep 2010

Literature of the Wounded

In Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic, Bette Bao Lord’s memoir of her three years in Peking as the American ambassador’s wife, she recalled that “all Chinese were in pain, and taking their pulse, reading their temperature, charting every change and finding t ... (read full critics)

nybooks published on Wed, 25 Aug 2010

9 Reviews

powerful and enlightening

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D said on Aug 13, 2009 | Add your feedback

Most gripping, graphic, and important book I've ever read

This is simply a must-read book for anyone interested in Chinese history. The astonishing and tragic last century unfolds chronologically through the personal stories of three unbelievably strong women: the author, her mother, and her grandmother. It begins with the warloard period, covers the brief ... (continue)

This is simply a must-read book for anyone interested in Chinese history. The astonishing and tragic last century unfolds chronologically through the personal stories of three unbelievably strong women: the author, her mother, and her grandmother. It begins with the warloard period, covers the brief democracy, the Japanese Invasion, the war with the Kuomintang, and finally the decades of Communism that followed.
You will not believe the horrors that occurred during this time and the way that somehow (or sometimes somehow not) this family was able to cope with it. An unabashed, inside, unedited view of what it was like live in China during these ages.
Be warned that if you are sensitive, there are some gruesome tales in this book. But if you can stomach it, you won't be sorry you read it.
Read this to enlighten and expand your knowledge of Chinese history.

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audioreader said on Jul 3, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

A very long book, but well worth the effort. I felt sorry for the women in the book. they were all good people but no matter how hard they tried someone always had it in for them".

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Janh said on Dec 20, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

This book does not fail to make me cry. In a really good way.

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Jennifer Gearing said on Nov 16, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

It gets to the limits of human endurance and shows the results of longdated brainwashing. Very impressing.

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Sei8 said on Nov 5, 2008 | Add your feedback

Groan!! Heavy going most of the way .... but what an eye-opener about the horrors of living in China during the MAO regime. Anyone with any doubts about what communist China was all about should grab this book and read every word. The resilience and strength of the ordinary people as described b ... (continue)

Groan!! Heavy going most of the way .... but what an eye-opener about the horrors of living in China during the MAO regime. Anyone with any doubts about what communist China was all about should grab this book and read every word. The resilience and strength of the ordinary people as described by the author, are quite remarkable, and I have great admiration particularly for the women protagonists. However I have to add that having been born in 1953, my first thought when I came to the end of the book was: "thank God it wasn't in China ..."

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Cinzia said on Oct 21, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback