Sasha Gong

This book just came out as the author's first book in English. Sasha Gong was a Chinese dissident during the Cultural Revolution and she tells her story as she describes the turmoil of that era in Chinese history. I read a lot of novels about the cultural revolution under Mao but never has one been so real to me. I actually felt what it must have been like to live during that era and was firightened for those who were committed to fighting for human rights. The book was easy to read and you could tell that English is the author's second - third or forth language by the use some of the descriptions. But she definitely gets her point across in that the events of her entire life lead her to achieving a PhD from Harvard and citizenship as a US citizen where she says she could finally feel at home with her Chinese heritage. To us, the book may seem overly patriotic but as someone who was a protester during the 60"s, I came to realize that those of us that were actually born in American can never appreciate the suppressive world of Mao's China and how brave one had to be to fight that oppression. I highly recommend this book.… (mehr)