Nien Cheng was born into a well-to-do Chinese family in 1915.  Her family was able to give her a college education, including post-graduate work at the London School of economics.  That's where she met her future husband.

But the time she spent in Great Britain may have been a time bomb of sorts.

In 1966, at the age of 51, Nien Cheng, by then a widow, was arrested and accused by the Chinese Communist government of being a Britiah spy.

For nearly seven years Nien Cheng was imprisoned and sometimes tortured. 

After her eventual release, she came to the United States.