Mao: The Unknown Story
Mao US Edition
Empress Dowager Cixi UK Edition

‘An atom bomb of a book.’  — Time

‘An atom bomb of a book.’  — Time

A New York Times notable book

Praise for Jung Chang

Jung Chang awarded CBE for services to Literature and to History:

Jung with her CBE for services to literature and to history, 20/03/2024. Photo by Yui Mok/PA Wire.

Jung with her CBE for services to literature and to history, 20/03/2024. Photo by Yui Mok/PA Wire.

Wild Swans author Jung Chang awarded CBE for services to literature | The Independent

Reviews for, ‘Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China’

‘Fly, Wild Swans is another wonder book from Jung Chang. Elegiac and beautifully written, I am quite blown away by it’ —Lady Antonia Fraser

‘Few can match Chang’s ability to bring Chinese history and politics to life through deeply felt personal narrative, and few have shaped western understanding of China as broadly. Nearly 35 years on from the book that made her name, this story of suffering and success has the air of a closing chapter, a reckoning with both her achievements and the cost of the path she chose’ —The Guardian

‘Readers cherish Chang’s books for offering glimpses of a vast and opaque nation. Fly, Wild Swans again demonstrates Chang’s ability to explore subject matter of significant weight in prose that is a pleasure to read’ —The I Paper

‘Packed with poignant snapshots of family history and juicy episodes of literary life under state scrutiny … the follow-up to her 1991 bestseller is both a tribute to her uncrushable mother and a powerful portrait of censorship and shifting attitudes in Xi’s China’ —Financial Times

‘A testament to her dedication to her mother, and to family love that persists despite barriers. It will captivate fans of Chang’s earlier work’ —Irish Independent

‘Painful. Astonishing. Honest. Profoundly revealing as a portrait both of a family and of the deeper traumas that lie at the heart of modern China’ —Rory Stewart

‘Jung Chang’s powerful and profoundly moving sequel to Wild Swans has been well worth the wait. Her and her remarkable mother’s story since the end of Wild Swans intertwines fascinatingly with that of national socialist modern China, with their love-filled human story threatened by hideous Communist oppression, all over again. Threatened, but because of their bravery and evident decency, never crushed’ —Andrew Roberts

‘Far more than a sequel, Fly Wild Swans is the elegiac account by Jung Chang of the literary life that made her famous and the price she has paid for being a loyal daughter’ —Michael Sheridan 

Links:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/fly-wild-swans-jung-chang-sequel-review/

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/fly-wild-swans-my-mother-myself-china-jung-chang-review-zxndbtg6l

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/sep/15/fly-wild-swans-by-jung-chang-review-a-daughter-of-china-speaks-again?CMP=share_btn_url

Wild Swans Jung Chang: ‘My mother is dying in China, but my writing has made it too dangerous to visit her’ | The Independent

Fly, Wild Swans — Jung Chang brings her epic memoir up to date – The Financial Times

Freida_Hughes_www.independent.co.uk/voices-gallery-royal-academy-poem

Woman’s Hour – Jung Chang – BBC Sounds

‘China can’t be dragged to the bad old days,’ says Chinese-British author Jung Chang – Channel 4 News

‘Wild Swans’ is the Sunday Times Bestsellers 8th most popular book in the past 50 years!

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary Newspaper Front Cover 18/08/2024

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary Newspaper Front Cover 18/08/2024

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary; Jung Chang Article by Christina Lamb 18/08/2024

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary;
Jung Chang Article by Christina Lamb 18/08/2024

You can read the Sunday Times article online using the link below: 

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/jung-chang-wild-swans-interview-9hg05lvt0

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About Jung Chang

Jung Chang
Jung Chang at a gate of the Forbidden City where Empress Dowager Cixi lived.
Jung Chang is the author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991), which has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, except in China where it is banned, as are all of her other books. She wrote a ground-breaking trilogy of the history and personalities of modern China: Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, with Jon Halliday); Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (2013); and Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China (2019). Her latest book is Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China (2025). Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Jung Chang was born in China, in 1952. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 at the University of York – the first person from Communist China to receive a doctorate from a British university.

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