Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China

Jung Chang’s epic family memoir, Wild Swans, defined a generation, chronicling the experiences of Jung, her mother, and her grandmother—“three daughters of China”—as China transformed from empire to Communist nation. Fly, Wild Swans continues the story of Jung’s family—and China—from the late 1970s until today. During that time, China rises from a decrepit and isolated state to world power challenging American dominance as Jung makes a new life in the West—one of the first Chinese to leave her homeland at the end of the Cultural Revolution. As Jung becomes a writer, her life remains intimately entwined with her native land, a relationship made more complex because her books are banned.

A love letter to her mother, and a tribute to her grandmother and father, victims of the Cultural Revolution, Fly, Wild Swans reveals that for Jung, the past is never far away. It has shaped her, just as it has molded modern China and continues to influence its future.

Today, China is again at another watershed moment: Chairman Xi Jinping seeks to return the country to the Maoist days, building a Communist state with capitalist features. This new Xi era is greatly affecting both Jung and her mother. Fly, Wild Swans brings their story into the present, offering an immersive, deeply moving, and unforgettable account of life in a communist dictatorship and the threats modern China poses to the international world order. It is family history at its best.