Without a chronology, an autobiography that reprises the high and low points of a life can make for a riveting but at times...
A first English translation of an autobiography whose initial volume was published in 1936 in Shanghai introduces a feisty woman warrior who defied—not always successfully—her autocratic traditional family, wrote prolifically, served on the front, and loved passionately.
Xie Bingying, born in 1906 in a Chinese village (and died in 2000 in San Francisco, where she had lived since 1974), lived in proverbially interesting times—as Warlords and Nationalist and Communist forces fought for power and Japan invaded. A romantic idealist rather than cold-blooded theoretician, Xie ruefully recalls her life from childhood until the 1938 Japanese invasion, when she nursed soldiers at the front. The daughter of a scholar, who taught her to read, she was determined not to be a conventional woman of the period. Though she deeply loved her equally strong-willed mother, she strongly resisted having her feet bound—but to no avail. Then, when her mother refused to let her continue her education, she threatened suicide. Betrothed since childhood to a neighbor’s son, Xie again tried to defy her mother when the marriage was to take place. She ran away, was caught, held prisoner, and eventually went through with the ceremony in 1927, though the marriage was soon annulled. Xie moved to Beijing, had lovers, and bore an illegitimate daughter. Even before the marriage, however, Xie was writing for progressive publications, had joined a regiment in Chiang Kai-shek’s army, and fought the feudal warlords. She later studied in Japan to study, was imprisoned briefly for her political views, and, back in China, continued to write and teach. Despite intimidation, poverty, and often near-starvation, Xie continued fearlessly to fight for change and women’s rights.
Without a chronology, an autobiography that reprises the high and low points of a life can make for a riveting but at times confusing story. Nonetheless, this is an evocative self-portrait of a Chinese woman who really was a warrior.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-231-12250-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
