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Anchee
Min Anchee Min, who grew
up in China during the Cultural Revolution, describes her personal
experiences in the memoir
Red Azalea, and also focuses on that
period of history in several works of fiction, among them the novels
Becoming Madame Mao and
Wild Ginger. The Cultural Revolution,
initiated by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and lasting
from 1966 until Mao's death in 1976, was a radical movement intended to
revitalize devotion to the original Chinese Revolution.At age seventeen, Min was sent to Red Fire Farm, a collective of some 13,000 workers near the East China Sea. She lived there for three years, enduring hardship, laboring to grow cotton in unyielding soil. Min eventually escaped Red Fire Farm when picked as a finalist--from a pool of twenty thousand candidates--for a film version of a political opera by Madame Mao, Red Azalea. But Min's success was short-lived: in September, 1976, Mao died, Madame Mao fell into disfavor, the political system was thrown into chaos, and the film was abandoned in mid-production. Min worked at the film studio as a set clerk for six years. With the assistance of actress Joan Chen, a friend from acting school, Min came to the United States in 1984 as a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She knew virtually no English when she arrived in the United States, and immersed herself in English studies. Min's 1999 novel Becoming Madame Mao, traces the rise to power of Madame Mao in the years 1919 through 1991. Library Journal reviewer Shirley N. Quan observed that Min's "characterization of Madame Mao is so strong that one may tend to forget that this work is a novel and not a true biography." Wild Ginger focuses on the later years of the Cultural Revolution with protagonists, Maple and Wild Ginger, two teen girls who manage to navigate the difficulties of Mao's regime in different ways. Described as "both a tragic love story and a parable that illustrates the corruption caused by political and moral fanaticism" A more historical novel, Min's Empress Orchid returns readers to the China of the mid-nineteenth century, and the life of Tsu Hsi, or "Orchid," a seventeen-year-old woman of a poor, rural family who becomes the Chinese emperor's seventh wife, bears the son that will become the "Last Emperor," and, after the emperor's death, rules the country as regent for over four decades. Based on an actual story, the novel follows Orchid's efforts to survive court life and gain the influence needed to ensure that her child will become heir to the dynasty, Booklist reviewer Donna Seaman noted that the author "continues
to fulfill her mission to tell the truth about her homeland,
particularly China's long tradition of demonizing women," and praised
the resulting novel as "insightful, magnetic," and "bewitching." Carl Sandburg Literary Award, 1993, for Red Azalea; Red Azalea was named a Notable Book of the Year, 1994, by the New York Times. From: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC Click here to see what Anchee Minn titles are held by Escondido Public Library. On the Web
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