FLY, WILD SWANS

Thirty-four years later, a brave Chinese writer continues the family history documented in Wild Swans.

The 1991 bestseller Wild Swans, with more than 13 million copies sold worldwide, opened eyes to the realities of 20th-century Chinese history through the stories of three generations of the author’s family: her grandmother, her mother, and herself. To this day, it remains banned in China. Chang dedicates the sequel to her 94-year-old mother, “whose deathbed I am unable to visit.” The grounds for this become clear over the course of the memoir, which jumps from one blood-curdling episode to the next in admirably calm and clear tones. The Cultural Revolution began when the author was 14; the atrocities she witnessed at her school, where honored teachers were beaten, and at denunciation rallies, where both of her parents endured public torture and shaming, helped to ensure that when she left to study in England in 1978, she would never make her home in China again. After her marriage to the historian Jon Halliday, the pair co-authored a biography of Mao that boldly challenged beliefs about him in both the East and the West. As she was writing, “I was conscious that I was writing about true evil,” a signal example being the intentionality of the policies that led to the Great Famine of 1958-1961, which killed nearly 38 million people. Simultaneously banning food imports and increasing exports on an “unimaginable” scale, Mao calmly noted, “With all these projects, half of China may well have to die.” While the worldwide popularity of Wild Swans made Chang enough of an international celebrity to keep the Chinese government from taking extreme measures against her (say, throwing her in jail after issuing her a visa to visit her mother), surveillance and restriction increased continually since she was told in 2007 to “renounce your book or else,” ultimately preventing her from entering the country at all. Her mother’s steadfast support, wisdom, and insight into the perverse machinations of the Communist Party and its representatives shine like a beacon throughout.

An essential, unexpectedly relevant account of a people divided and turned against themselves by politics.