Book Review: Wild Swans by Jung Chang

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.

As an adapted version of Wild Swans finally reaches the London stage, the book itself, which has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, is still banned in China.

Red Sister, Ching Ling married Sun Yat Sen, considered the ‘father’ of the Chinese republic; Little Sister May Ling became the first lady of pre-Communist China, while Big Sister, Ei Ling became a political advisor – each had a lasting effect on Chinese politics. 

“It goes without saying that this book is going to be banned. A lot of Chinese publishers thought my first book, the Empress Dowager, may not be banned because she’s a historical figure and died in 1908, she’s harmless to the party.

She said that publishers had contacted her and asked her permission to market the book in China. “Then they went back and asked their bosses and they all invariably said no. So it’s going to be banned too.”

“It’s me that is being banned because if the book does well, and by association my other books do well, particularly the biography of Mao, it will make people interested.”