Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, Emily Feng
Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, Emily Feng
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Let Only Red Flowers Bloom
Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China

Author: Emily Feng

Narrator: Emily Feng

Unabridged: 9 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/18/2025

Synopsis

A “gripping and scrupulously reported” (The Washington Post) investigation into the battle over identity in China, chronicling the state oppression of those who fail to conform to Xi Jinping’s definition of who is “Chinese,” from an award-winning NPR correspondent.

“Emily Feng’s focus on ordinary people—bravely determined to shape their own lives—captures the mood of the Xi Jinping era more essentially than reams of statistics ever can.”—Evan Osnos, National Book Award winner, author of Age of Ambition

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

The rise of China and its great power competition with the U.S. will be one of the defining issues of our generation. But to understand modern China, one has to understand the people who live there – and the way the Chinese state is trying to control them along lines of identity and free expression.

In vivid, cinematic detail, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom tells the stories of nearly two dozen people who are pushing back. They include a Uyghur family, separated as China detains hundreds of thousands of their fellow Uyghurs in camps; human rights lawyers fighting to defend civil liberties in the face of mammoth odds; a teacher from Inner Mongolia, forced to make hard choices because of his support of his mother tongue; and a Hong Kong fugitive trying to find a new home and live in freedom.

Reporting despite the personal risks, journalist Emily Feng reveals dramatic human stories of resistance and survival in a country that is increasingly closing itself off to the world. Feng illustrates what it is like to run against the grain in China, and the myriad ways people are trying to survive, with dignity.

About The Author

Emily Feng is an award-winning international correspondent for NPR. She’s a regular contributor to NPR podcasts and member stations and she is also a frequent guest on U.S. and BBC radio and television programs. Previously based in Beijing, China for NPR, she now lives in Taipei, Taiwan.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brendan

Two forces converged when I was deciding whether or not to read Emily Feng's Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China. The first was my avoidance of titles which contain "identity" in their subtitles. I have seen too many books which purport to discuss identity that b......more

Goodreads review by Amy

Nuanced and empathetic portrait of people representing different ways to be Chinese in today’s political climate. I particularly liked the chapter on the Hui scholar. Highly recommend for anyone interested in Chinese society......more

Quotes

“Gripping and scrupulously reported . . . enormously informative, but more important, it manages to humanize history that all too easily shades into abstraction.”—The Washington Post

“Emily Feng delivers an exquisite, up-to-the-minute portrait of the China you can’t grasp from afar.”—Evan Osnos, National Book Award winner, author of Age of Ambition

“One of the top China correspondents of her generation, Feng faced unremitting harassment to bring these stories to light.”—Barbara Demick, National Book Award finalist for Nothing to Envy and Eat the Buddha

“Through a dozen finely told stories, [Emily Feng] captures the breadth of China and the dilemma that many Chinese feel today: how to get ahead in a country where political conformity is once again stifling some of the country’s most creative young minds.”—Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winner, author of Sparks

“A meticulously researched, beautifully human and often heartbreaking account of what it truly means to be Chinese in Xi Jinping’s China today.”—Isobel Yeung, CNN international correspondent

“An absorbing account from one of the most intrepid China reporters of our times. Through her writing, Emily Feng takes you inside more visions of China than any traveler—and most reporters—could ever encounter.”—Yuan Yang, MP, author of Private Revolutions

“Emily Feng has written a spellbinding book, one that evokes China in all its complexities, beauty, and outrages. . . . Let Only Red Flowers Bloom is masterfully reported and told.”—Te-Ping Chen, author of Land of Big Numbers

“Feng . . . has written warm, often searing portraits of ordinary Chinese buffeted by the all-consuming presence of the Communist Party in people’s lives. That theme makes this a must-read about today’s China.”—Jane Perlez, former New York Times Beijing bureau chief

“[Emily Feng’s] deeply personal and sympathetic account of ordinary and extraordinary people struggling under a totalitarian yoke illuminates Xi Jinping’s China in a way that most reporting on the topic cannot.”—Jamil Anderlini, POLITICO Europe’s editor-in-chief

“Let Only Red Flowers Bloom . . . is a brilliant and perceptive meditation on what it means to be Chinese in today’s world, by turns loving and mournful.”—Howard W. French, author of Born in Blackness

“Essential reading for anyone interested in geopolitics—or the world of the near future.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Let Only Red Flowers Bloom is a moving series of portraits of individuals caught up in the security apparatus of Xi Jinping’s China, a paean to the endangered pluralism and diversity of Chinese identity today.”—Stephen Platt, author of Imperial Twilight and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom

“A chilling look at the Chinese government’s long reach into the Chinese diaspora . . . [and] is concise yet replete with empathy, insight, context, and narrative momentum.”—BookPage, starred review

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