Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China

In this continuation of Wild Swans, Jung Chang returns to the story of her mother and to her own life after leaving China for Britain in 1978. The memoir follows their relationship across distance, ageing and political restriction, while Chang describes research visits, family memories and the consequences of writing books banned in mainland China. Her mother’s experiences provide a living connection between the upheavals of the Mao era and the transformed society that followed.

The book places this family history within China’s reform and opening, rapid economic expansion and renewed global influence. Chang contrasts the greater personal and intellectual space of the post-Mao decades with the tightening political climate under Xi Jinping, including censorship, surveillance and pressure on historical memory. It is at once a daughter’s account of her mother, a memoir of exile and return, and a political reflection on the changes China underwent between the late 1970s and the twenty-first century.