Wild Swans: The drama of China in the lives of three women (1909-1978).

"Wild Swans" combines the intimacy of a memoir with the epic sweep of a novel to tell the story of three women: the author's grandmother, born in 1909 during China's feudal era, given as a concubine to a warlord and unable to escape her fate until 1932. Her daughter, raised in Manchuria under Japanese and then Russian occupation, joined the secret resistance during the civil war. The granddaughter, Jung Chang, spent her childhood among the privileged and powerful, but the brutality of the "Cultural Revolution" led her to question everything, even Mao Zedong himself. Her parents were persecuted and exiled to distant labor camps, driving her father to madness and death. She, not yet twenty, was exiled to the foothills of the Himalayas.

"Wild Swans" takes us deep into China, from its palaces to its prisons, from its massive public spectacles to the quiet quarters of women and concubines. It is, at once, a significant work of contemporary history and an extraordinary testament to the human spirit.

• Author: Jung Chang
• Publisher: Dar Al-Saqi - Beirut
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Number of Pages: 608
• Binding: Paperback
• ISBN: 9781855165441