A Thousand Miles of Dreams: The Journeys of Two Chinese Sisters (Asian Voices) - Softcover

Welland, Sasha Su-Ling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0742553140 ISBN 13: 9780742553149

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007

Synopsis

A Thousand Miles of Dreams is the fascinating biography of two intensely rivalrous Chinese sisters whose eventful lives took very different paths in their quest to be independent women. They were Chinese modern girls who sought to forge their own way during a period of social revolution that unsettled relations between men and women, even among nations. Daughters of an imperial scholar-official and a concubine, the two sisters followed professional trajectories unimaginable to their parents' generation.

About this title

About the Author:

Sasha Su-Ling Welland has woven together the remarkable lives of her grandmother and great-aunt in this biography. She is assistant professor of anthropology and women studies at the University of Washington.

Review:

Filled with fascinating glimpses of twentieth-century Chinese women's intellectual history and insights into the Chinese-American and Anglo-Chinese experience. (Publishers Weekly)

Welland is an anthropologist with a novelist's eye for the art of both making lives and making books. She weaves biography, memoir, genealogy, social history, literary criticism, and theoretical reflection coherently, accessibly, and, indeed, beautifully. (Booklist, Starred Review)

Welland wisely refrains from intruding on the narration, allowing her fascinating topic to speak for itself. Scholarly and 'serious' in its depth and breadth of research, Welland's book is also highly readable and full of rich detail. . . . This is a book that enlightens as much as it delights and remains with you long after the reading. (The Seattle Times)

Welland skillfully navigates the murky waters of memory, exaggeration, cultural misunderstanding and transformed identity, with both a scholar's critical eye and a granddaughter's desire to believe. (Honolulu Advertiser)

Fascinating . . . Sasha Welland has produced a wonderful book from the lives of these two strong sisters. (Times Literary Supplement)

An intriguing and memorable study. . . . We have been told the lives of two powerful and interesting women . . . both determined to surmount as best they could the restrictions placed on women's lives. (Peter Stansky Virginia Woolf Miscellany)

Biographies are said to narrate the life of an individual. In this multi-layered work, Sasha Su-Ling Welland accomplishes much more, as she relates a complex story of re-creations, self-discovery, and selective memories. . . . [A] well-written and valuable work, especially for the many interesting points that it makes on the intricacies of cultural encounters, usages of the past, and exoticism. (Valentina Boretti, University of London H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online)

Welland's forebears could fairly be called trailblazing, and . . . she deftly shows how their lives mingled with history. (The Instrumentalist)

The author of A Thousand Miles of Dreams intersperses the accounts of the two sisters' lives in alternate chapters, thus providing a fascinating comparison of experiences in these distant countries and contrasting cultures as the Second World War loomed. (Michael Sheringham Asian Affairs)

Remarkable. . . . A coming-of-age account of the Ling sisters, Welland's book . . . reveal[s] new insights about the role of Chinese women as it changed not only in China but also the West. . . . A well-crafted and lively book that is sure to capture the imagination of lay readers and scholars alike. (International Examiner)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0742553140
• ISBN 13: 9780742553149
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 392