Asian History

Kuramoto, born in Dairen, Manchuria, in 1927, tells the story of her family's life in Dairen during Japanese expansion, the subsequent defeat of Japan at the end of WWII, and the family's repatriation to a devastated Japan.

One of the Chinese American Librarians Association's Ten Best Books of 2010 During the infamous "Rape of Nanking," a brutal military occupation of Nanking, China, that began on December 13, 1937, it is estimated that Japanese soldiers killed between 200,000 and 300,000 Chinese and raped between 20,000 and 80,000 women. To shelter civilian refugees, a group of Westerners established a Nanking Safety Zone. Among these humanitarians was Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and acting president of Ginling College. She and Tsen Shui-fang, her Chinese assistant and a trained nurse, turned the college into a refugee camp, which protected more than 10,000 women and children during the height of the ordeal. The Undaunted Women of Nanking juxtaposes day-by-day the exhausted and terrified women's wartime diaries, providing vital eyewitness accounts of the Rape of Nanking and a unique focus on the Ginling refugee camp and the sufferings of women and children. Vautrin's diary reveals the humanity and courage of a female missionary in a time of terror. Tsen Shui-fang's diary, never before published in English and translated here for the first time, is the only known daily account by a Chinese national written during the crisis and not retrospectively. As such, it records a unique perspective: that of a woman grappling with feelings of anger, sorrow, and compassion as she witnesses the atrocities being committed in her war-torn country. Editors Hua-ling Hu and Zhang Lian-hong have added many informative annotations to the diary entries from sources including the proceedings of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial of 1946, Vautrin's correspondence, John Rabe's diary, and other historical documents. Also included are biographical sketches of the two women, a note on the diaries, and information about the aftermath of the tragedy, as well as maps and photos--some of which appear in print in this book for the first time.

"Red Azalea is the story of a young woman's emotional and political education in the last years of Mao's China. Born in Shanghai in 1957 Anchee Min, as a member of the Little Red Guards, was asked to betray and publicly humiliate a beloved teacher. At seventeen she was sent to work at a labor collective, the Red Fire Farm, where her education in fear, deprivation, and hardship continued. And yet, forbidden to speak, to dress, to read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline that enabled her to survive the horrors of her daily existence. She fell in love with her company leader, and under a grubby mosquito net, always fearful of exposure by a vindictive colleague, the two women found emotional solace." "Then, from a pool of twenty thousand candidates, Min became a finalist for the film version of one of Madame Mao's political operas. But as shooting of the film commenced, Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world, and changing forever life as Anchee Min had known it." "Red Azalea is a revelatory and disturbing impression of China. It gives an intimate and compelling portrait of China's Cultural Revolution and its toll on the lives of the young men and women caught up in its fatal coils. The story Anchee Min recounts here is exceptional for its candor, its poignancy, its courage, and for "the most stunningly beautiful prose you could hope to read" (London Times)."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Spider Eaters is at once a moving personal story, a fascinating family history, and a unique chronicle of political upheaval told by a Chinese woman who came of age during the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution. With stunning honesty and a lively, sly humor, Rae Yang records her life from her early years as the daughter of Chinese diplomats in Switzerland, to her girlhood at an elite middle school in Beijing, to her adolescent experience as a Red Guard and later as a laborer on a pig farm in the remote northern wilderness.

A memoir written in poetry that chronicles a young girl's experiences during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.