Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love

(Paperback)

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Description

An extraordinarily powerful collection of heartbreaking, shocking stories, including Xinran's own experience, of Chinese mothers who have lost or had to abandon their daughters and are still searching... Ten chapters, ten women and many stories of heartbreak, including her own- Xinran once again takes us right into the lives of Chinese women and their lost daughters. Whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions or hideous economic necessity, these women had to give up their daughters for adoption, others were forced to abandon them - on city streets, outside hospitals, orphanages or on station platforms - and others even had to watch their baby daughters being taken away at birth, and drowned. Personal, immediate, full of sorrow but also full of hope, this books sends a heart-rending message to Chinese girls who have been adopted to show them how things really were for their mothers, and to tell them they were loved and will never be forgotten.

Reviews

This is an extraordinary book told with generosity and warmth by a brilliant storyteller -- Hilary Spurling * Financial Times *
Xinran rages against the system and gives voice to adoptive mothers overseas who have rescued young Chinese girls and desolate birth mothers who grieve and feel guilt for the loss of their daughters -- Iain Finlayson * The Times *
One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved * Economist *
No bleaker picture exists of the fate of Chinese female infants...than Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother * Spectator *
Harrowing and heartbreaking yet important tales * SHE Magazine *

Author Bio

Xinran was born in Beijing in 1958 and was a successful journalist and radio presenter in China. In 1997 she moved to London, where she began work on her seminal book about Chinese women's lives, The Good Women of China. Since then she has written a regular column for the Guardian; appeared frequently on radio and TV and has published the acclaimed Sky Burial; the novel Miss Chopsticks; the groundbreaking book of oral history China Witness; a book of her Guardian columns called What the Chinese Don't Eat and Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother, about mothers and their lost daughters. She lives in London but travels regularly to China.