Jung Chang
With worldwide sales of over 15 million, Jung Chang is responsible for exposing Communist China from beneath the veil to the Western world and beyond. Her autobiography Wild Swans, which was banned in her native China, is held up as a benchmark in family saga.
Her follow up, a biography of Chairman Mao, Mao: The Unknown Story was published in 2005, co-written by her historian husband Jon Halliday, and also received worldwide critical acclaim.
Revered for her evocation of Mao and communist China, Jung was surprisingly born into a family of devout Communists and grew up in a walled housing compound with a maid and driver – something foreign to most in China. However, her unflinching look at her own, her grandmother’s and her mother’s experience under Mao’s rule, Wild Swans reveals how the daughter of two respected Communist Party officials became disillusioned with the establishment as a result of her father speaking up against Mao. Exploring warlord marriages, war and revolution, the book is a fantastical tale yet as far from fantasy as reality will allow.
A former barefoot doctor, steelworker and electrician, in 1982 Jung became the first individual from the People’s Republic of China to earn a PhD from a British university. The control that communism, and Maoism in particular, exerts over its people is the cornerstone of all her work to date, particularly in her biography of Mao. Her knowledge of he former leader goes far beyond the opinionated, having researched the man for 12 years – interviewing those who either had his ear or felt his touch including George Bush, Sr., Henry Kissinger, and the Dalai Lama. Jung has been awarded numerous honorary doctorates and will be immortalised for her outspoken views of the country of her birth.
We’re very proud to welcome Jung Chang to Port Eliot, knowing full well that her books and contribution as chronicler of modern day China will live on well beyond these times. She will be talking about her personal life and writing.
Links:
- The Guardian interview with Jung Chang
- Times review of Mao: The Unknown Story
- 2005 interview with Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
Video:
Jung Chang on The Book Show (Sky Arts)
