wild swans three daughters of china book review

“Of all the personal histories to have emerged out of China”s twentieth-century nightmare, Wild Swans is the most deeply thoughtful and the most heart-rending I’ve read. Almost casually, Jung Chang introduces us to a world where personal insecurity, sudden ruin and the possibility of torture and violent death are as perfunctorily taken for granted as tomorrow”s thunderstorm. “This real-life saga of a Chinese family over three generations contains more domestic drama than Dynasty, more violence than any film noir, more heart-rending tragedy than Little Dorrit and more ironic twists and turns and villains on the make than any Balzacian fresco. This is a family memoir that has the breadth of the most enduring social history.”

“ Wild Swans made me feel like a five-year-old. “Immensely moving and unsettling an unforgettable portrait of the brain-death of a nation.” Hillary Clinton, O, The Oprah Winfrey Show “An inspiring tale of women who survived every kind of hardship, deprivation and political upheaval with their humanity intact.” Reviews of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Breathtaking in its scope, unforgettable in its description of China’s long nightmare, it is both an important work of history and a remarkable human document. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is a tale of extraordinary cruelty and bravery, of death and survival.

Her parents were denounced and tortured, and she herself was exiled to the edge of the Himalayas. Jung Chang, their daughter, was raised in the privileged circles of China’s Communist elite, but was to take the unimaginable step of questioning Mao himself.

Following the Communist victory in 1949 she and her husband became senior officials. That daughter grew up to become active in the Communist movement during the civil war against the Kuomintang. As the general lay dying, she fled with her infant daughter. Jung Chang’s grandmother’s feet were bound as a child, and she was given to a warlord general as a concubine. Through the story of three generations of women in her own family – grandmother, mother and daughter – Jung Chang reveals the whole tragic history of China’s twentieth century. Since its first publication it has been published in 37 languages and sold more than 13 million copies (while still banned in mainland China). Few books have ever had such an impact as Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.

Wild swans three daughters of china book review