Writer, historian, educator, and someone who shone a light for millions of people around the world onto the recent history of China, Jung Chang wrote Wild Swans, one of the most influential multi-generational biographies of our time. She has also written meticulously researched books on Chinese leaders such as Chairman Mao and the Dowager Empress Cixi. Born fourteen years before the Cultural Revolution began, Jung Chang was swept up by that particular tide of history.

Briefly a member of the Red Guard, and then a so-called barefoot doctor, electrician and steelworker, she watched her parents being repeatedly denounced and her father’s heath utterly broken by his treatment. When the universities re-opened in 1973, she was galvanised to begin studying, and she came to the UK on a Chinese government scholarship as a postgraduate student. She was the first Chinese person to gain a Phd in the UK. A visit here from her mother began the train of events which resulted in Wild Swans and then her life changed for ever. It became the highest-selling non-fiction paperback book ever published. I’m delighted to welcome Jung Chang to My Life in Seven Charms.

https://bit.ly/3BVSHBa