tion id="u5a8c1d80-24a9-5911-b85c-c69cf9df9546">
WILD
SWANS
Three Daughters of China
JUNG CHANG
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1991
This 25th anniversary edition published 2016
Copyright © Globalflair 1991, 2003
Jung Chang asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007176151
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007379873
Version: 2018-05-14
‘Of all the personal histories to have emerged out of China’s twentieth-century nightmare, Wild Swans is the most deeply thoughtful and the most heart-rending I’ve read. It moves, in part, like a ghastly oriental fairytale, but the authority and the reticent passion with which Jung Chang speaks her memories—and those of others—is unmistakable.’
COLIN THUBRON, Spectator
‘Wild Swans is a very unusual masterpiece. Everything about it is extraordinary. Not only has it been a popular bestseller, because it is impossible to put down; it has also received the most serious critical attention. The book arouses all the emotions, such as pity and terror, that great tragedy is supposed to evoke, and also a complex mixture of admiration, despair and delight at seeing a luminous intelligence directed at the heart of darkness.’
MINETTE MARRIN, Sunday Telegraph
‘Mesmerising. Like all great stories of survival, no matter what tragedies and horrors are encountered along the way, Wild Swans is ultimately an uplifting book: it is the courage and spirit of this family which will, I believe, be my abiding impression (even if memories of the horrors endured will take a long time to fade).’
ANTONIA FRASER, The Times
‘A quite exceptional book. Jung Chang is the classic storyteller, describing in measured tones the almost unbelievable.’
PENELOPE FITZGERALD, London Review of Books
‘ Wild Swans has stayed in my mind all year. Quite unforgettable.’
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF, Times Literary Supplement
‘An extraordinary story, popular history 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 trivialise the real and deadly seriousness of its subject matter, but the book offers many of the pleasures of good historical fiction.’
LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT, Independent
‘Riveting, an extraordinary epic. A work of true, living history drawing deep on family memories, an unmatchable insight into the making of modern China and the impact of war and totalitarianism on the destinies of a quarter of the human race.’
RICHARD HELLER, Mail on Sunday
‘A huge tour de force.’
DEREK DAVIES, Financial Times
‘Immensely moving and unsettling; an unforgettable portrait of the brain-death of a nation.’
J. G. BALLARD
To my grandmother and my fatherwho did not live to see this book
Contents
