Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a 'barefoot doctor,' a steelworker, and an electrician.Īs 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.

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. 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. Through the lives of three generations of women, this book tells the story of 20th-century China. 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. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang 107,084 ratings, 4.27 average rating, 6,827 reviews Wild Swans Quotes Showing 1-30 of 88 When he asked my grandmother if she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy just to have her daughter and himself: If you have love, even plain water is sweet.

Three daughters of china book