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Title:
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Fly, Wild Swans |
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Authors:
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Chang, Jung |
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Genre:
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Non Fiction |
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Pages:
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314 |
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Year:
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2025 |
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Publisher:
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Harper Collins |
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Language:
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English |
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Description:
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Jung Chang’s Wild Swans was a book that defined a generation, an epic personal history of Jung, her mother and grandmother – ‘three daughters of China’. The book opens in 1909 with her grandmother’s birth – and foot-binding – when China was under the last emperor, moving through Mao Zedong’s rule, especially the Cultural Revolution during which Jung’s parents were subjected to horrendous ordeals because of their courage. It finishes in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping officially ended the Mao era and started the ‘reforms’. Jung, at that propitious juncture, became one of the first Chinese to leave Communist China for the West.
Nearly half a century on, China has risen from a decrepit and isolated state to a global power, the challenger to the United States’ dominant position in the world. Through those decades, Jung’s life has been intimately entwined with her native land. Her experiences dealing with the regime in those years were rich and revealing – especially so because all her books were (and are) banned.
Fly, Wild Swans is the follow-up to Wild Swans and brings the story of Jung’s family – along with that of China – up to date. The book is in many ways Jung’s love letter to her mother. It is inevitably also about her grandmother and father, both of whom died tragically in the Cultural Revolution but are often recalled in this book. In fact, the past is never far away in Jung’s subsequent life. It has shaped her, and moulded the present China, and what’s more, it promises to herald the future.
China is now at another watershed moment with the era of Chairman Xi Jinping greatly affecting the lives of Jung and her mother. Fly, Wild Swans is Jung’s heartfelt response to that experience, and a book filled with drama, love, curiosity and incredible history – both personal and global. Ultimately uplifting, told in Jung’s clear, honest and compelling voice, it is memoir writing at its best. HarperCollins from the book blurb.
Comments from BDS Reviewers:"I learnt a lot from this book about the past and current impacts on Chinese people of Mao's rule."
"The tale is of resilience, optimism and opportunity - there is no time to sit and wait, you must make the most of what you have now."
"This book has been meticulously researched and is written in an easy-to-read style so is an informative historical account but with an embedded personal narrative."
"People might think this needs to be read after 'Wild Swans', as a sequel. This is not the case - it is written to be read as a stand alone. It's just fine on its own."
"Jung Chang has gone to great lengths to ensure factual accuracy, but has nevertheless written a book which I found not only fascinating but deeply moving."
"I have never read a 'history' which has been so well illustrated by the effects it has on individual lives."
"The book is enlightening from a historical perspective, but also extremely current which is necessary for us with the potential global consequences."
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Categories:
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Non-fiction, Just Added, 2027 Titles |
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