| Anchee
Min’s writing has been praised for its raw, sharp language
and historical accuracy. Her bestselling memoir, Red
Azalea, the story of her childhood in communist China, has
been compared to The Diary of Anne Frank. Min credits
English with giving her a means to express herself, arming her
with the voice and vocabulary to write about growing up during
China’s Cultural Revolution. “There was no way for
me to describe those experiences or talk about those feelings
in Chinese,” she has said of a language too burdened by
Maoist rhetoric. Today, she writes candidly about events she
was once encouraged to bury. The New York Times has called
her “a wild, passionate and fearless American writer.”
Like every child of her
generation, Min was taught to write “Long Live Chairman
Mao!” before she was taught to write her own name. She
believed in Mao and Communism. At the age of 17, Min was sent
to a labor camp near East China Sea, where she discovered the
truth of Mao’s calling. She endured mental and physical
hardships, which included a severe spinal cord injury. She worked
for three years before talent scouts spotted her toiling in
a cotton field. Madame Mao, preparing to take over China, was
looking for a leading actress for a propaganda film. Min was
selected for having the ideal “proletarian” look.
Mao died before the film was complete, and Madame Mao, blamed
for the disaster of the revolution, was sentenced to death.
Min was labeled a political outcast by association. She was
disgraced, punished, and forced to perform menial tasks in order
to reform herself. In 1984, with the help of a friend overseas,
Min left China for America. She spoke no English when she arrived
in Chicago, but within six months had taught herself the language
in part by watching “Sesame Street” and “Mr.
Roger’s Neighborhood” on American television.
Since the completion of
Red
Azalea, Min has written four subsequent works of historical
fiction: Katherine, Becoming
Madame Mao, Wild
Ginger, and Empress
Orchid. The books attempt to re-record histories that
have been falsely written. “If my own history is recorded
falsely, how about other people?” she asks. Both critics
and writers have praised her work, calling it “historical
fiction of the first order.” Her novel, The
Last Empress, was published in April 2007.
•••
“Anchee’s
performance—not just a reading, but performance art—was
raw, moving, thought provoking and distressing, and delightfully
funny. It is hard to describe how honestly and skillfully Anchee
maneuvered her way through her personal experiences in China
and her life in America as a writer, capturing the audience
from her opening, humble thank you to everyone for being a part
of the evening.”
— North Suburban
Library, Wheeling, IL
“Anchee Min,
in her brilliant, poetic novel, has personalized that mythical
figure Madame Mao, and in the process has transformed both the
woman and the myth.... This is historical fiction of the first
order.”
—
Russell Banks |
