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Red Azalea
Red Azalea
Author: Anchee Min
Red Azalea is Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. As a child, she was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with anot...  more »
ISBN-13: 9781400096985
ISBN-10: 1400096987
Publication Date: 4/11/2006
Pages: 320
Edition: Reprint
Rating:
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 22

3.6 stars, based on 22 ratings
Publisher: Anchor
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio Cassette
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

reviewed Red Azalea on + 8 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
This book was absolutely amazing. It was the first time in years that I had not been able to put a book down. This book is a striking story of what it was like to live in China under Mao. If you are at all interested in this period of history, this book is a must read. It is a true story that is both passionately romantic and incredibly disturbing.
maggiemaynj avatar reviewed Red Azalea on + 32 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
A deep look into the life of a chineese woman, during the cultural revolution.She later, came to the U.S. ,and became a wonderfull author. A great book.
reviewed Red Azalea on + 12 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
(From Booklist) This is an honest and frightening memoir of growing up in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Min describes a systematically deprived Shanghai childhood (the family was forced into successively meaner quarters); school days spent as a member of the Red Guard, spouting the words of Chairman Mao and being forced to publicly betray her favorite teacher; and later teen years on a work farm in order to become a peasant because peasants were the only true vanguard of the revolution. The farm years, with their backbreaking workdays and heartbreaking, lonely nights, exemplify the grinding insanity of the Cultural Revolution, the terror and dehumanization it inflicted on ordinary Chinese. Eventually, Min was tapped by the party to be in the propaganda film Red Azalea, during the making of which she suffered more humiliation and political subterfuge. What is so extraordinary is that Min managed to keep a tight hold on her spirit. Her autobiography is not just a coming-of-age story or history lesson; it is a tale of inner strength and courage that transcends time and place.
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reviewed Red Azalea on + 9 more book reviews
Tedious and too long. Very little content/information in very drawn-out prose. Just could not get going with this book. Having read Wild Swans which is an autobiographical book about 5 times the length of Red Azalea, I was incredibily disappointed with this book. This is not the book to read if you want to truly understand the culture of China and how people survived the hardships and restrictions of the Mao regime.
reviewed Red Azalea on + 14 more book reviews
Autobiography of young girls life in China during cultural revolution. Easy read and very interesting. Highly recommended.


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