(Courtesy of Nevada Humanities)
Born and raised in Communist China, Anchee Min experienced an incredible chain of events that led her to her life as a best-selling author in America.
Born and raised in Communist China, Min was taught to write “Long live Chairman Mao” before she was taught to write her own name. Her family lived in a rough neighborhood in Shanghai where she joined the Red Guard, Mao’s notorious youth group, in order to escape being beaten and persecuted. At seventeen she was sent to a labor camp on the East China Sea. Her experiences during these years became the basis of her memoir Red Azaleas.
Min’s fate changed overnight in 1976. The aging Mao was dying and his wife Jiang Ching (Madame Mao), was preparing to take over China. Believing that film would be the most effective way to influence the masses, Madame Mao sent talent scouts throughout the nation looking for someone with the proper “proletarian image” to star in her propaganda films.
On September 9, 1976, while the first of these films was in production, Mao died. Madame Mao fell from power-as did all associated with her. Anchee Min was denounced.
With the help of a friend, Min immigrated to the United States in 1984. She started learning English by watching Sesame Street. In the following decade she not only mastered the English language but wrote Red Azaleas and three novels, Becoming Madame Mao, Katherine, and Wild Ginger. Anchee Min’s fifth book, a novel entitled Empress Orchid, was published in early 2004.
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