Red Azalea

Name: Red Azalea
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Anchee Min
ISBN: 9781977377678

Author: Anchee Min

Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller

Unabridged: 9 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/08/2018

Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Asian Nonfiction, Memoirs

Synopsis

A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, this is Anchee Min's celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao's China.

As a child, Min was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao's political operas, Min's life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world.

About Anchee Min

Anchee Min was born in Shanghai in 1957. As a child, she became a model member of the Red Guard. At seventeen she was sent to work on a communal farm, from which she was plucked by Madame Mao's associates to become a star of the Chinese propaganda film industry. After the death of Mao in 1976, Anchee Min was disgraced. She left China for the U.S. in 1984; she now lives in California.

Reviews

Goodreads review by William2 on January 16, 2025

I can recommend three excellent books on the late 20th-century Chinese experience. The first is Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai. This memoir begins with Cheng’s victimization by the state at the onset of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in 1966. Harry Wu's Bitter Winds: A Memoir o......more

Goodreads review by Jim on December 22, 2016

A story of life during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976) when many were killed or shipped off to forced labor farms. Our heroine is sent as a young girl to do backbreaking work in the fields. Families live in terror, subject to the whims of village councils who show up one day and annou......more

Goodreads review by Tessa on October 24, 2022

"Ne trebuie, desigur, o comunista adevarata ca sa joace o comunista." Autoarea s-a nascut la Shanghai in timpul regimului condus de Mao Zedong. In 1984 a emigrat in America si acolo si-a scris cartea de memorii "Azaleea rosie", care a devenit bestseller international. Atat ea cat si romanul ei sunt i......more

Goodreads review by Michael on September 05, 2011

Irony builds upon irony in this autobiography of the best-selling Chinese historical novelist, Anchee Min. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a time which Chairman Mao coined as “permanent revolution,” the Chinese people are totally oppressed and required to conform in a way crippling......more