Wild Swans is a compelling memoir that chronicles three generations of a Chinese family. Jung Chang, the narrator, chronicles the lives of her grandmother and mother as well as her own generation through some of the most tumultuous times in Chinese history. By combining gripping historical accounts with powerful prose, Chang recreates what it was like to live through the Communist Era--the civil war, death, and accusations that naturaly surrounded such a volatile time in history. Beginning in the late 60's Chang chronicles her successive lives as a red guard, "barefoot doctor", and factory worker. What emerges is a complete view of the politics and changes in humanity that resulted from the devastation during and after the Cultural Revolution. This is a powerful piece that will appeal to Sinologists and casual readers of history alike. The uplifting message you leave the book with can't help but make you feel that humanity ultimately prevails.

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 China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love.

Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.

Carolyn SeeNewsdayWild Swans is riveting. It's blindingly good: a mad adventure story, a fairy tale of courage, and a tale of atrocities. You can't, as they say, put it down.

The New YorkerHer family chronicle resembles a popular novel that stars strong,beautiful women and provides cameo roles for famous men....But Wild Swans is no romance. It's a story...about the survival of a Chinese family through a century of disaster.

TimeA mesmerizing memoir.

JUNG CHANG was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from York University in 1982, the first person from the People¹s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. She lives in London and has recently completed a biography of Mao.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Imprint: Touchstone
Distributor: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 08-05-2003
Pages: 544
Measurements: 8.300in X 5.600in X 1.400in X 18.025oz