Falling Leaves Return to Their Roots: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter - Softcover
This is a Chinese woman's story of how she suffered appalling emotional deprivation and rejection by her family as a child growing up in China and Hong Kong in the 40s and 50s, and of its consequences in her adult life, above which she rose to make a happy marriage and become an extremely successful doctor and business woman in the USA. It's also a story about Hong Kong: of middle class life at the time of European concessions and thereafter.
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Review:
"I read for two nights, sleepless, my heart pierced by Adeline Yen Mah's account of her terrible childhood. Falling Leaves is a potent psychological drama pitting a stubborn little girl against the most merciless of adversaries and rivals: her own family. I am still haunted by Mah's memoir."
--Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club
"Painful and lovely, at once heartbreaking and heartening."
--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
"Brilliant, compelling, and unforgettable. A heartrending modern-day Cinderella story set against the turbulence of twentieth-century China. Autobiography at its best."
--Nien Chang, author of Life and Death in Shanghai
From the Author:
--Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club
"Painful and lovely, at once heartbreaking and heartening."
--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
"Brilliant, compelling, and unforgettable. A heartrending modern-day Cinderella story set against the turbulence of twentieth-century China. Autobiography at its best."
--Nien Chang, author of Life and Death in Shanghai
Response from readers has exceeded my wildest dreams
For the first fourteen years of my life, I don't recall having opened my mouth once to volunteer a single spontaneous remark during any of the meal times I shared with my parents. Everything I repressed and dared not say as a child growing up in Shanghai is in Falling Leaves. I wrote it on behalf of all unwanted children in the hope that they will persist to do their best in the face of hopelessness, to believe that in the end their spirit will prevail, to transcend their abuse and transform it into a source of courage, creativity and compassion.
For the first fourteen years of my life, I don't recall having opened my mouth once to volunteer a single spontaneous remark during any of the meal times I shared with my parents. Everything I repressed and dared not say as a child growing up in Shanghai is in Falling Leaves. I wrote it on behalf of all unwanted children in the hope that they will persist to do their best in the face of hopelessness, to believe that in the end their spirit will prevail, to transcend their abuse and transform it into a source of courage, creativity and compassion.
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- PublisherPenguin
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0140287809
- ISBN 13 9780140287806
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages288
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Kim McGillivray (illustrator). Seller Inventory # Abebooks49168
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