Here you can find out more about Anchee Min's books and credits for this site.
Red Azalea
Back cover Anchee Min grew up in a time and place where the soul was secondary to the state, where beauty
was mistrusted and love could be punishable by death. He extraordinary story takes readers to China under Mao,
revealing both the brutality of oppression and the incredible resilience of the human spirit. It is a journey of
passion and danger, luck and betrayal - told in simple, moving prose that Newsweek calls "as delicate
and evocative as a traditional Chinese brush paining."
Excerpt "When I was seventeen, life changed to a different world. The schools vice principal had a talk with me after his talks with many others. He told me that he wanted to remind me that I was a student leader, a model to the graduates. The policy was there, as strict as math equations. He told me that I belonged to one catagory. The catagory of becoming a peasant. He said it was an unalterable decision. The policy from Bejing was a holy instruction. It was universally accepted. It was incumbent upon me to obey. He said he had sent four of his children to work in the countryside. He was very proud of them. He said that twenty million Chinese worked on theses farms. He said many more words. Words of abstractions. Words like songs. He said when one challenges heaven, it brings pleasure; when one challenges the earth, it brings pleasure; when one challenges ones own kind, it brings the biggest pleasure. He was reciting the poem by Mao. He said a true Communist would love to take challenges. She would take it with dignity. I was seventeen. I was inspired. I was eager to devote myself. I was looking forward to hardship."
This was Min's first book, a memoir of her life in Mao's China. It takes you through her time as a Little Red Guard in elementary school where she is forced to denounce her teacher as a reactionary - through the hardships she faced in labor camp near the shores of the East China Sea where she fell inlove with her commanding officer and where she was discovered by Madame Mao's talent scouts - through her battle to land the leading roll in a propaganda film and her affair with her supervisor - through the death of Mao and the fall of his wife and her escape to the United States.
Learn more at Wikipedia.
Katherine
Coming soon
Becoming Madame Mao
Back Cover From the best-selling author of Red Azalea, this extraordinary novel tells the stirring,
erotically charged story of Madame Mao Zedong, the woman almost universally known as the "white-boned demon," whom
many hold directly responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Bringing her lush psychological insight
to bear on the facts of history, Min penetrates the myth surrounding this woman provides a "convincing, nuanced
portrait of a damages personality" (Entertainment Weekly) driven by ambition, betrayal and a never-to-be-fulfilled
need to be loved. With all the compressed drama and high lyrical poetry of great opera, Becoming Madame Mao
is a "remarkable accomplishment... Madame Mao is finally given her own voice."
Excerpt "A woman's biggest wish is to be loved - there is no deeper truth. I feel ripped from the
essence of life. I come to feel for Zi-zhen. I identify with her saddness and cling to my own sanity. The
Forbidden City has been the home of many who have gone mad. I wander in Mao's grounds and watch men and women act
like old-time eunuchs. Like dogs, the sniff. They spend every second of their waking time trying to please the
emperor. The can tell when the emperor is ready to "let go" of his concubine.
I am aware of my position. My role has no flesh. Nevertheless, illusion is available if I work to create it.
I am still Mao's offical wife. I have to get on the stage. Although dim, there are still lights over my head. Mao's
men have tried to take away my costume. I can feel the pulling of my sleeves. But I won't let go. I am holding
on to my title. I won't let the magic of my character fade away. Hope guides me and revenge motivates me."
Learn more at Wikipedia.