Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
    Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
    Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
    Audiobook22 hours

    Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

    Written by Jung Chang

    Narrated by Joy Osmanski

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author.

    An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution.

    Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateDec 13, 2011
    ISBN9781442349704
    Author

    Jung Chang

    Jung Chang was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of York in 1982, the first person from the People’s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. She lives in London with her husband, Jon Halliday, with whom she wrote Mao: The Unknown Story.

    Related authors

    Related to Wild Swans

    Related audiobooks

    Personal Memoirs For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      In Summary

      Jul 1, 2021

      There’s some good writing here. This short extract has covered a lot of ground and established that Edwina is a recently widowed woman thanks to the sinking of the Titanic. Her interior voice is skilfully rendered and there are some subtle touches su

      1 min read

    • Article

      To the MANOR BORN

      Jan 26, 2022

      To the MANOR BORN
      7 min read

    • Article

      To the MANOR BORN

      Jan 26, 2022

      To the MANOR BORN
      7 min read

    • Article

      Family SECRETS

      Apr 7, 2022

      Journalist Michelle Hather, 58, lives in south-west London with her husband Simon. She is originally from Liverpool and has three sons, Oscar, 29, Rorie, 27, and Louis, 25. As mum to three young men, I look at the terrible suffering happening right

      5 min read

    • Article

      Kwame Anthony Appiah

      Mar 9, 2021

      Kwame Anthony Appiah
      32 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Sep 8, 2021

      Great Read
      5 min read

    • Article

      Hunter Valley ancestors

      Apr 12, 2023

      Hunter Valley ancestors
      3 min read

    • Article

      ROYAL BABY Cutie Pies!

      Jul 10, 2022

      1 I grew up to become the first member of the royal family to compete in the Olympic Games. 2 For a while, the army was my career and I saw active duty in a war-torn nation. 3 I was born on a table on the Greek island of Corfu, to a profoundly deaf m

      2 min read

    • Article

      Seeing China face-to-face

      Jul 1, 2020

      Seeing China face-to-face
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Warning To The Fortean

      Jul 14, 2022

      A Warning To The Fortean
      9 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      Nov 12, 2021

      Your LETTERS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Lady Hester Stanhope

      Nov 23, 2023

      Lady Hester Stanhope
      2 min read

    • Article

      Pawns, Diplomats, Spies

      Dec 14, 2021

      Pawns, Diplomats, Spies
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Legend of the Lost Pilot

      Aug 22, 2017

      XICHANG, China _ Almost everybody in Liangshan knows the story of the American slave. During World War II, it went, an American aviator crash-landed near a village. The villagers had never seen a plane before, and they'd never seen a foreigner. Some

      12 min read

    • Article

      Origin Story

      Apr 1, 2022

      Origin Story
      15 min read

    • Article

      Touched By History

      May 30, 2021

      Jane, Lady Franklin, wife of doomed polar explorer Sir John Franklin, was intelligent, manipulative and frustrated. Auckland writer and polar historian Joanna Grochowicz, who has written three historical novels for children on Antarctica, is determin

      6 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Aug 10, 2022

      Great Read
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Wild Swans

    4.5/5

    132 ratings75 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      In my mid-20s I read this book along with Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and War & Peace. Three generational histories set on different continents in my grandparents time. I was working at an international airport at the time, and it changed the way I understood all of the thousands of people who arrived and departed every day. When I looked at their ages and nationalities, I started to wonder "what have you lived through? which oppression did you survive? will your children have a better life than you have?"20 years later, they are questions I still ask.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is one of the best books I have ever read in my life, and I am classifying it as a must read. It is masterful, and a pure work of art that has taught me so much. As well as making me see the world in a new light. I plan on reading other books by Jung Chang, as I was not able to put down Wild Swans. Everyone should definitely read this book!!
    • 5/5
      Wild Swans tells the author's family history of herself, her mother and grandmother. The center of the book is clearly the story of her parents. Her own story is limited by her impression management. She rarely opens up to reveal her inner self. The picture of her mother and father are much more fully developed. warts and all. The grandmother's story is fleshed out the least, despite her having the most difficult life transitioning from concubine in warlord China to a mother to dissidents. What is important to note is the elevated social position of the family: As one of two hundred top Communist functionaries in Sichuan among 72 million inhabitants, they were no ordinary family. Jung Chang is in a similar position as Isabel Allende, narrating her country's recent history from a privileged vantage point. The personalization of the horrible events of the Japanese occupation, the Chinese Civil War, the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution is the great strength of the book. One Chinese aspect of "hell is other people" is that the Chinese managed to oppress themselves without a KGB or Stasi. The decentralized bullying of the Red Guards and local cliques is truly frightening and ugly. The abuses happened without much of a Milgramesque authority.I never understood the appeal of Mao, especially for the 1960s European kids from bourgeois families. Much of the Red in the East was the blood of innocent victims starved and killed by one of the 20th century's totalitarian dictators. How can one gloat in the icon of Mao, given all the death this man has caused? Vienna currently hosts a strange big exhibition of kitschy Mao devotionalia, collected by an enthusiastic foreign correspondent during the 1970s. As a corrective, visitors should really be handed this book.
    • 5/5
      A must read for anyone who wants to understand the many layers of communism. I really felt connected to the author and her struggles.
    • 4/5
      Good book - very moving account o fthe lives of Women in China
    • 5/5
      A great story of three women amid the backdrop of 20th century China.
    • 4/5
      Very (too ?) descriptive in the first chapters, too much not necessary background is provided to the reader, which can feel overwhelmed by the my mother's mother's something. After a good third of the book, the story become really interesting and depicts the author early life and events pre/post birth which will influence her.I would not mind being advised for another reading of the same period but from someone with a much more standard and modest background (vs. politically engaged and important parents background).
    • 4/5
      History is not a big reading interest of mine but I'm glad I made an exception in this case. This is such an interesting view of life in China during the major upheaval of Japanese occupation, the beginnings of Communist China, the insanity of Mao's Cultural Revolution, and the more modern expansion of freedoms. I learned so much about China that I hadn't known previously and the personal narrative of the author, based on the experiences of her family was inspiring and heartbreaking. I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      facinating book. I learned so much about Chinese culture and recent history. Certainly not for young readers.
    • 4/5
      Love books about Chinese history through the eyes of a family living through it.
    • 5/5
      DISCUSSION QUESTIONS1. What surprised you the most about Chinese history?2. What do we owe our government?3. How does the idea of socialism differ from what was practiced (pg. 415)4. Does society benefit from gender roles?5. Does the right of society weigh heavier than the right to the individual?6. Was the author's father a good man?7. Do you remember the first time you were disillusioned by your government?8. Compare how people view Mao with how people view Jesus.9. How long would you last as a peasant?10. How does this book relate to the Patriot Act, or does it?11. What about the government lies? (example ? steel production)12. Which of the 3 daughters had the best life, in your opinion?13. Was Mao aware of what he did?14. Chang says it was very painful to write this book.......She was unable to do so for many years.......If you went thru what she did, could you have written about it?? This book (published in 30 languages) is now banned in midland China? Chang earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics in London? Chang grew to love life in Britain, especially its literature and the arts.? Chang lives in West London with her husband,...a British historian who specializes in Soviet history.? Chang retired in the 1990's to concentrate on her writing.? Chang's latest work is a biography of Mao, co-authored by her husband.
    • 5/5
      An extraordinarily touching, brilliantly written story spanning three generations of the author's family and their survival during the darkest years in China, following the rise of Mao's dictatorship.
      I was hooked from the first page, resulting in many hours of lost sleep from being unable to close the book.
      I listened to the audiobook, too - narrated flawlessly by Joy Osmanski, who did a superb job of making the words flow into my mind and heart.
    • 5/5
      I was assigned to read this book for my English class during our World History year. I usually loved what was assigned to me the four years of high school, but for some reason, I was skeptical about this book. It was thick and heavy and, because I was undergoing treatment for cancer my senior year, I was actually a little mad at my english teacher for assigning it to me. But I am incredibly glad he did. This book kept me engrossed for an entire month with its captivating story and amazing characters. . . I was literally upset when I finished it. I wanted it to go on. I've read it again twice since and recommended it to friends about 4 times (they all liked it as well). I'm not usually one for historical novels, but this was a major exception. My teacher actually let me keep this book and I'm glad for it!
    • 3/5
      Good, but not great. It's nonfiction but is full of stilted dialogue which seems to take it into fiction-land - and not very good fiction at that. Having said that, it was a fascinating study of a period of history that I didn't know nearly well enough. I just wish she'd written either a strict nonfiction book, or else fictionalized it. This was an odd mishmash that didn't always work.
    • 4/5
      Contributes to our understanding of Chinese culture. The family is the story.
    • 4/5
      WILD SWANS is my first serious foray into twentieth-century Chinese history. For one, I am not all that big on history and memoirs. For another, I have ambiguous feelings on contemporary China, due to my Taiwanese background and my current job in Shanghai. WILD SWANS, however, was an eye-opening look into the horrors of Mao?s China and the importance of keeping history?even the bad parts?in our memories.Chang writes with a narration that is largely devoid of drama?the only way that a writer can give this horrifying historical period the respect and literary justice it deserves. At times this type of narration can make the distance between reader, writer, and events feel greater, but I appreciated this style for this tale: there is no need to play up the actual events of the Cultural Revolution with forced or extravantly elaborated prose. The result is that there is no writerly manipulation of emotions, instead just the clean human reaction to scenes of inhumane horror, and a strengthening of the bond of humanity between all sorts of readers.Whether you?re not big on nonfiction but are interested in reading about twentieth-century Chinese history, or if you enjoy memoirs but know nothing about twentieth-century Chinese history, WILD SWANS will be a heart-wrenching and searing read.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It gave me a whole new perception about China and its communist regime. Reading the book gave me the feeling of being right there in the midst of it all. A very well written book. I would highly recommend reading it.
    • 3/5
      This is Chang's memoir/biography of her life and those of her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother had been a Manchurian concubine (and had bound feet) before the Kuomintang came to power. She then lived to see the Communists and Mao take over. Her mother, daughter of a warlord and accepted daughter of a doctor, lived most of her adult life under Mao, and was moved to Chengdu. Originally a minor official married to another minor official, they were then declared "capitalist roaders" and dealt with denunciations, beatings, etc, as part of Mao's constant upheavals to keep the populace infighting for power and food.This book is quite terrifying and very frustrating and infuriating. What kind of leader starves his own populace in the name of building up industry? Or who deems education a bourgeois desire, wanting their populace to be illiterate and uneducated (yet expects to grow their industrial output?). Some of the language, though, is very MAGA-ish. Frightening.
    • 5/5
      Chang presents the history of China from 1909 to 1978, by telling the stories of three generations of women in her family. At age 15, in 1924, her grandmother became one of the concubines of a warlord general, and gave birth to Chang?s mother in 1931. The general died in 1933 and gave Chang?s grandmother, among the last generation to have bound feet, her freedom. The grandmother subsequently married a Manchu doctor in 1935, during the Japanese occupation of China. Chang?s mother becomes involved with the Communist Revolution, marries a party official in 1948, and eventually becomes an official herself. The author was born in 1952 (she has one older sister and three younger brothers). The majority of the book focuses on the author?s youth and young adulthood under various purges, the disastrous ?Great Leap Forward? focus on industry and resulting famine, and the vicious Cultural Revolution. She (and her parents) become disillusioned with China under Mao; her father suffers a mental breakdown and dies at age 54 in 1975. In 1978, Chang wins a scholarship to study English in England, where she now lives as do two of her brothers. Another brother lives in France. Only her mother and her older sister, married in 1970, still live in China. Her grandmother died in 1969.Chang?s reminiscences made a compelling story. However, the British pronunciations of the reader, actress Rowena Cooper, became annoying as the book went on, especially ?et? for ?ate.? Nevertheless, the author probably was more comfortable with a British reader, and I would recommend either this unabridged BBC/Chivers audiobook (the Harper Collins edition is abridged), or, if you can find it, the paperback edition from Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-42547-3. The latter includes a note from the author on pronouncing names, a family tree, a timeline, a map (very useful in following the movements of the protagonists), and a number of black-and-white family photographs. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Wild Swans is a true story of three generations of Chinese women and that alone is enough for me to urge you to read this book. Jung Chang tells the tale of her grandmother, who was a concubine in old China, and the tale of her mother, a wholehearted Chinese Communist who worked for Mao, and her own tale, the tale of a child in Mao?s China and a young woman who made her way to a new life in freedom.I was saddened by the terrible consequences of power concentrated in the hands of a few in this story. Mao seemed to offer China so much hope after centuries of cruel treatment of the common man by the emperors. Yet, within a few years, Mao made decisions that resulted in the starvation and death of millions of people. In this story, Chang shares the stories of small people in the new China and the miseries they endured.It took me some time to warm up to this story. It was not until Chang had shared her grandmother?s tale and had begun to relate her mother?s story that I began to love this book. Glad I didn?t give up early.My favorite little story from the book: When Chang was a little girl, she and her siblings were sent to a nursery during the day while both of her parents worked for the Communist Party. Chang and the other children often did not want to eat the food the nursery workers prepared. The nursery workers would taunt the children by saying, ?Think of all the starving children in the capitalist world!?
    • 5/5
      It annoys me to see this book compared with The Joy Luck Club because they're so totally different. For starters, it's actually true. (Most of) Jung Chang's family survived WWII, the Communist take-over, and the decades of famine and purges that followed it. This isn't a book about family relationships; it's about how history and government shapes an individual and what it's like to grow up in a society that doesn't teach you to think for yourself. What separates it from hundred-odd "Daughter of China" books on the market is that it doesn't try to wring beauty or meaning from the experiences it describes. It's just about what happened and the process of trying to live around it.
    • 5/5
      This is a long, fascinating book that I'm really glad I finished. I got this after reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which I absolutely loved. I didn't know it was non-fiction until it came in the mail. I saw that it was a banned book, so I used it for the Banned Book Challenge as well as the Chunkster Challenge.The book tells the life stories of Jung and her mother and grandmother. Along the way I learned quite a bit about China under Mao as well. I love history when it is presented this way. I've always felt that history was more about how people's lives were affected by their rulers than just names, dates, and events that occurred.The book is told chronologically. The first story is about how Jung's grandmother had no choice in being a concubine to a Chinese general. The "marriage" was arranged so that her grandmother's father would have more privileges of his own. Jung's mother was born from this union.Next, we learn of her mother's life growing up under Japanese occupation in Manchuria, and then after the Japanese surrender, the fight between the Kuomintang and the Communists for power in China. Jung's parents become Communist officials who very much believe in the Communist ideals. Their "faith" is eventually shattered by Mao's thirst for power and his "Cultural Revolution."Although her parents were still receiving their salaries from the government, they were also being detained or being made to go to denunciation meetings where they were yelled at and/or beaten. The Red Guard and the Rebels were encouraged to rise up against the old Communist officials and take control. Even young children were encouraged to beat up their teachers. School days consisted of reading Mao's works, punishing anyone who was a "class enemy", and tearing up the grass and flowers in the courtyards as they were too "decadent."As Jung grows up, she is at first enamored with Mao, but is eventually disillusioned with what has happened to her family and to herself. She is a bright young woman who is required several times to be "reeducated" by the peasants or factory workers. After Mao dies, eventually China changes for the better. She is able to go to the West and study, but she never permanently returns to China.I highly recommend this book if you are interested in history in general or Chinese culture. It is also a "wake-up" call to us softies in the West. Books like these really make me appreciate American freedom!
    • 4/5
      This contains spoilers. Wild Swans is the memior of Jung Chang's childhood in China during the Cultural Revolution, but it's not only about her. She begins with the story of her grandmother. Jung Chang's grandmother was a concubine to a warlord. She had to use charm and wit to keep herself safe from being held prisoner by the warlord's family - as she was considered the property of the warlord and of his legitimate wives. Upon her warlord's death, she made the very difficult decision to marry, which caused many problems for her, her new husband, and potentially her afterlife (in which her husband and warlord would cut her in half to share her). This story delves into great detail about the strife that Jung Chang's grandmother had to overcome. Now that I'm familiar with how foot binding works I will shudder every time I hear mention of it. I never realized....The next section of the book is about Jung Chang's mother, who grew up mainly during the strife between her mother and her stepfather's family. WWII was also raging, which meant occupation and brutalization by the Japanese. (This was the most difficult section for me to read.) Once the Japanese occupation ended, their country was ruled by tyranny, thus bringing on the communist uprising. Jung Chang's mother became deeply involved in the Communist Party while very young, but felt betrayed by The Party by the time she was pregnant with her first child. The final section talks about Jung Chang's childhood, watching the Communist Party emotionally and physically torture those around her, including her parents. She vividly portrays the original innocence that she had - believing in the communist party and Mao's propaganda. Slowly, gently, she began to emerge from this innocence. More gracefully than would be expected, given what was going on around her. That speaks to the power of Mao's campaign. This was a fascinating and beautifully written book. It's written lovingly, yet it's brutally honest. The research is so amazing that every once in a while I wondered "how does she know that?" Her years' worth of research definitely paid off. This book deserves the fantastic worldwide sales that it has received. I am tempted to read Jung Chang's biography of Mao pretty soon.
    • 5/5
      This is a good book. It is the experience of three generations of Chinese women. Grandmother - before the revolution, mother- during the communist take over, daughter (author) - during the Cultural Revolution. It is a good look at how the whims and wishes of one man, Mao, could bring a country to the brink of meltdown. These experiences may explain why the author wrote a biography critical of Mao that some LTers were not happy with.
    • 3/5
      The Wild Swans:Three Daughters of China is the fourth book I?ve completed for the Book Awards Reading Challenge. This memoir won the British Book Awards ?Book of the Year? in 1994. Wild Swans tells the story of three generations of women in Jung Chang?s family: her grandmother, her mother, and herself. It spans the years from 1909, when her grandmother was born, to 1978, the year Jung Chang left China to study in Great Britain.Wild Swans encompasses the personal history of Chang?s family, as well as the tumultuous history of China. At the age of 15 Yu-fang, the author?s grandmother, became the concubine of a warlord. Jung Chang?s mother, De-hong, was born 7 years later. After the war lord?s death in 1933, Yu-fang married Dr. Xia. De-hong was raised in his household, as one of his children. Jung Chang was born in 1952, the second of 5 children born to De-hong and her husband, Shou-yu.This book details the family?s struggles, as China itself struggles. Some events that impact the family include: World War II; the rise of Mao Tse Tung and the Communist party,;the founding of the People? Republic of China; the Great Leap Forward; the Cultural Revolution; and China?s eventual opening up to the West.Chang?s parents are loyal Communists, yet they suffer denunciation, re-education and imprisonment. The entire family is subject to the daily indignities of life in a totalitarian society. As children, Chang and her siblings rarely see their parents. Fortunately, Yu-fang is able to care for them.Wild Swans is a very long and complex book. The appendices include a brief chronology of modern China juxtaposed with Chang?s family?s milestones. There is also a very helpful family tee and a map of China. I referred to these often. This memoir is quite thorough. I learned a tremendous amount about modern China.Unfortunately, it did get a bit repetitious. We read numerous times that De-hong was upset that her husband put his very strict Communist principles before his family?s well-being. And the family?s constant struggles with other Communist Party officials, while important, are also tedious after a while. Some of the language seems a bit stilted. Chang did not learn English until her early 20?s, and the awkwardness shows. Overall, this memoir was quite good. It took me a very long time to read it, and I think it would be improved greatly by skillful editing.
    • 5/5
      Loved it! Very interesting read about China from a perspective of three generations .
    • 5/5
      Astonishingly moving account of the momentous events that have enveloped China and its people in the Twentieth Century. A book vast in its scope - the unending rise and fall of despotism, hierarchies, hopes and fears through decades of upheaval, slaughter and visionary aspiration - and yet focussed on the individual experiences, suffering, horrors and wonders of a nation constantly at war within itself and with the world at large. A breath-taking masterpiece.
    • 5/5
      In the Wild Swans, Jung Chang manages to project you in the middle of the century in the communist China. Apart from describing solely the lives of herself, her mother and her grandmother, she shares the lives of 800 millions of Chinese. This is a very precious piece of information and I believe we are lucky to be able to read it.
      Jung is edgy and she has clear feelings and opinions regarding the experience of her family. Even so, the reader is free to have his own ideas and feelings about this story. It is probably the aspect I liked the most about this great book.
    • 5/5
      A truly moving and stunning biographical work, Chang tells the three interconnected stories of her grandmother, mother and herself, together all of whom experienced the most tumultuous century in Chinese history. Her gift of writing not only brings the shocking events to life, but the reader feels for each character and is moved by their stories and hardships. This book is obviously deeply personal to Chang, and it reads so: like reading a collection of diaries. An important book to read to understand the personal impacts the last century has had on the Chinese.
    • 4/5
      Much more my sort of biography, dates, time lines, notable events, facts that could potentially be verified if one had the will and the papers were not destroyed in the Cultural Revolution etc. Full of details of the lives of a family of three women in China. Only a bit of dialogue , thankfully, and all of the type of which the gist could be realistically recalled.