Things That Must Not Be Forgotten

(Paperback)

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This award-winning memoir describes the childhood of Kwan, a young boy living in Beijing in the 1930s. Abandoned by his Swiss mother and overwhelmed by his father, Kwan's life is thrown into turmoil when the Japanese invade. After Japan surrenders to the Allies, the Kuomintang and the Communists start their own battle. Kwan describes how his father, active in the resistance during the Japanese occupation, is accused of collaboration with the enemy and arrested. He sets out to write down "things that must not be forgotten" - to save himself from execution. Kwan is spirited away to Hong Kong and is eventually reunited with his family. This memoir describes how a young boy builds a relationship with his aloof father and reconciles his twin heritages of Europe and China.

Author Bio

Michael David Kwan is a translator and a writer in several genres. His screenplay, The Undaunted, won the 1999 Praxis Screenwriting Award, and his play A Season in Purgatory won the 1995 DuMaurier National Playwriting Competition. He lives in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of Broken Portraits, a non-fiction book about the Tiananmen Square massacre.