Description: An oral history of growing up in China during the dramatic years of the Cultural Revolution of the 1950s and adult life in Communist China in the 1980s.
Review Quotes:
"This oral history of China's revolution brings to life women's experiences in the context of larger upheavals. Personal, compelling, and conversational, the book gives Western readers a glimpse into the daily life of two girls who became Red Guards. Each looks back with a clear, honest gaze at the atrocities and hopes that were the hallmark of Mao's China." - Vera Schwarc, Freeman Professor History and East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University "By casting her historical narrative in the form of an extended dialogue between two Chinese women born into the world of communist privilege, Ye Weili gives her readers a new way to understand the Cultural Revolution as a coming-of-age experience. The result is an absorbing and deftly original book." - Jonathan Spence, Yale University