China Saga - Hardcover

Lee, C. Y.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1555840566 ISBN 13: 9781555840563

Publisher: Grove Pr, 1987

Synopsis

Traces four generations of a Chinese family, from the Boxer Rebellion of the 1890s to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, offering a portrait of China's history, people, and culture

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Spanning the years from 1880 to 1976, Lee's (Flower Drum Song) epic novel beautifully integrates highly credible characterizations with turbulent Chi nese political history. Fong Tai at tends school in Boston, then returns home to assume a government post. The stabiity of his life is undermined by two events: the burgeoning Reform Movement, whose members seek to overthrow the corrupt Ching Dynasty, and Fong Tai's forbidden ardor for Rose, a prostitute. Years after Fong Tai's murder by insurgents and Rose's suicide, their illegitimate child, Brigid, is befriended by two adherents of Sun Yat-sen. A fiery, uninhibited girl who represents the new breed of modern ized Chinese woman. Brigid joins her fate with those who at last abolish the Ching Dynasty. Though revolutionar ies triumph, Brigid despairs after she is deserted by the charismatic actor who fathered her daughter, Mabel. Al ready incorrigibly dissolute by age 15, Mabel eventually has two sons, both of whom are drawn into the turmoil of Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution. Lee masterfully succeeds in portray ing the decades of large-scale havoc and private emotional pain, and the book abounds with illuminating his torical details.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The author of Flower Drum Song has written another fine story. In 1880, Fong Tai is a young man about to be married. In 1976, his great-grandson Jimmy takes a train to Beijing, wondering if he could possibly find his American father. In between is a picture of one family's adventures as political turmoil determines their lives. With them, readers experience the Boxer Rebellion, the rivalry for control by Sun Yat-sen and Mao Tse-tung, World War II and the Korean War, and the Cultural Revolution. Chinese culture and tradition are both described and demonstrated through the actions of the real people who walk these pages, and the history of modern China comes alive. Thoroughly entertaining and highly recommended. Andrea Lee Shuey, Dallas P.L.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Pr
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 1555840566
• ISBN 13: 9781555840563
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 534