Chronicles the life of Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, the last Communist Party leader in China, focusing on his influence over the Chinese people and politics during his twenty-seven years in power.
Emily Wu recounts the nineteen years she spent growing up in the midst of China's chaotic Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, describing the changes her family went through and how they shaped her adult life.
The author tells about the happy life she led in China up until she was twelve-years-old when her family became a target of the Cultural Revolution, and discusses the choice she had to make between denouncing her father and breaking with her family, or refusing to speak against him and losing her future in the Communist Party.
The author tells about the happy life she led in China up until she was twelve-years-old when her family became a target of the Cultural Revolution, and discusses the choice she had to make between denouncing her father and breaking with her family, or refusing to speak against him and losing her future in the Communist Party.
Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois, " and people of laughter.
