Wild Swans [antikvár]

WILD SWANS Jung Chang was bom in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She was a Re^l Guard briefly at the age of fourteen and then worked as a peasant, a 'barefoot doctor,' a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming an English-language student and, later, ^ assistant lecturer at Sichuan University. She left China for Britain in 1978 and was subsequentiy awarded a scholarship by York University, where she obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 - the first person from the People's Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. Jung Chang lives in London and teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. 'A quite exceptional book. Jung Chang is the classic storyteller, describing in measured tones the almost unbelievable.' penelope fitzgerald, London Review of Books 'WildSwans has stayed in my mind all year. Quite unforgettable.' michael ignatieff, Times Literary Supplement 'An extraordinaiy stoiy, popular histoiy at its most compelling. Her readiness to record life's small pleasures as well as its looming horrors is not only an index of Jung Chang's honesty and good humour, it is a part of what makes Wild Swans so fascinating. To compare Wild Swans to sagas of the kind that fill the bestseller lists may seem to triviálisé the real and deadly seriousness of its subject matter, but the book offers many of the pleasures of good historical fiction.' lucy hughes-hallet,/«i^ctláiewí 'Remarkable. A truly splendid book.' clare hollingworth, dflify Telegraph 'Wild Swans made me feel like a five-year-old. This is a family memoir that has the breadth of the most enduring social history.' martin amis, Independent on Sunday