Jung Chang’s latest non-fiction book, Big Sister Little Sister Red Sister provides a fascinating insight into the history of China in the first half of the 20th century. Jung Chang, an author of Chinese origin now living in London, has written four books about Chinese history.
The first, Wild Swans, published in 1991, tells the story of her own family. Subtitled Three Daughters of China, Wild Swans documents Jung Chang’s experiences growing up during the Cultural Revolution as well as the lives of her grandmother whose feet were bound as a girl, and her mother whose life straddled nationalist and Communist China.
Her three more recent books examine the lives of key figures in Chinese modern history: Mao Zedong (Mao: The Unknown Story), Empress Cixi (Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China), and Sun Yat-Sen and Chiang Kai-shek (Big Sister Little Sister Red Sister).
Published in 2019, Big Sister Little Sister Red Sister follows the fortunes of the three Soong sisters, Ei-ling, Ching-ling and May-ling, attractive, intelligent, and educated in America, who were closely involved in China’s transformation from dynasty to republic, and, in the case of Red Sister, to the Communists gaining power and ruling China.
Big Sister Ei-ling married H. H. Kung who was prime minister and finance minister in the nationalist government for many years. She was also chief advisor to Chiang Kai-shek when he led the nationalist government. The second sister, Ching-ling, married Sun Yat-sen whose republican movement overthrew the monarchy in 1911. Following her husband’s death, Ching-ling, the Red Sister of the title, went on to become Mao Zedong’s Deputy. Little Sister, May-ling, married Chiang Kai-shek who ruled China’s nationalist government from 1928-1949 before the Communists drove him to Taiwan.
Growing up in Australia, I knew the names of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, but little more about them. I had not heard about the Soong sisters. Jung Chang’s latest book helped fill the gaps in my knowledge about pre-Communist China. It is a must-read to gain some insight into the China of today.
 |
| Title: Big Sister Little Sister Red Sister Author: Jung Chang Publisher: Jonathon Cape Year of publication: 2019 Pages: 316 |