Falling leaves return to their roots : the true story of an unwanted Chinese daughter = Luo ye gui gen

The story of an unwanted Chinese daughter growing up during the Communist Revolution, blamed for her mother's death, ignored by her millionaire father and unwanted by her Eurasian step mother. A story of greed, hatred and jealousy; a domestic dramais played against the extraordinary political events in China and Hong Kong. Written with the emotional force of a novel but with a vividness drawn from a personal and political background. FALLING LEAVES has become a surprise bestseller all over the world. New 25th Anniversary Edition __________ 'I am still haunted by Mah's memoir . . . Riveting. A marvel of memory. Poignant proof of the human will to endure' Amy Tan, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club 1940s, Shanghai. As the civil war rages on and China falls under communist rule, young Adeline lives in constant fear. Not of the war, but of her family: blamed for the death of her mother, she is rejected by her father and abused by her cruel stepmother. With the help of her aunt, Adeline escapes to the United States where she finds love, happiness and success. But will that be enough to quell a lifelong yearning for acceptance, or will she return to the family that rejected her years ago Falling Leaves Return to their Roots is both the enthralling story of a Chinese family in a time of political upheaval, and a moving account of one girl's unrelenting will to survive. __________ ' Falling Leaves is a terrible and riveting family history . . . It is also a story about endurance and the cost it can exact. Gripping' Daily Telegraph 'An illuminating account of the destructive nature of family relationships set against a backdrop of China in change' Mail on Sunday 'An act, not of vengeance or bitterness, but of catharsis' Sunday Telegraph Adeline Yen Mah was born in 1937 in Tianjin, a port city one thousand miles north of Shanghai. She was the fifth and youngest child of an affluent family. Her grand aunt - in an unprecedented achievement - had founded the Shanghai Women's Bank in 1924, and her father was a revered businessman whose reputation for turning iron into gold began when he started his own firm at the age of nineteen. Yet wealth and position could not shield young Adeline from a childhood of appalling emotional abuse at the hands of her own family. Adeline's mother died giving birth to her. As a result she was deemed bad luck, and considered inferior and insignificant by her older siblings, who bullied her relentlessly. When her father took a beautiful Eurasian as his new wife, Adeline found herself at the mercy of a cold and cruelly manipulative stepmother. While Niang treated all of her stepchildren as second-class citizens, the full power of her wrath was unleashed on Adeline. As the Red Army approached in 1949, the family moved to Hong Kong. Adeline was shuttled off to boarding school in virtual isolation, forbidden visitors, mail, and all contact with her family. Burying herself in books, she dreamed of freedom and a new life. Thought to bring bad luck because her mother died giving birth to her, Adeline Yen Mah was discriminated against by her family all her life. "Falling leaves" is both the moving story of how she survived that rejection and an enthralling saga of a Chinese family, from the time of the foreign concessions to the rise of communist China and the commercial boom of Hong Kong An unwanted Chinese daughter growing up during the Communist Revolution was blamed for her mother's death, ignored by her millionaire father and unwanted by her Eurasian step mother. This is a story of greed, hatred and jealousy; a domestic dramais played against the political events in China and Hong Kong. The story of a Chinese woman and how she suffered appalling emotional deprivation and rejection by her family as a child growing up in China and Hong Kong. She tells of the consequences in her adult life, above which she rose to make a happy marriage and become a successful doctor in the USA