Private Revolutions

Written by one of the most sensitive and acute chroniclers of contemporary China working today, this is a beautiful, immersive, moving account of the country’s whirlwind transformations since the 1990s, told through the lives of four extraordinarily resilient and idealistic Chinese women -- Julia Lovell, author of 'Maoism' and 'The Opium War' A revelatory, moving and tender tale of hopes, fears and change. A real eye-opener about life in contemporary China -- Peter Frankopan This is a book of delights. Yuan Yang shows us the real China in all its complexity — the rich, detailed, often brutal life of the villages and cities. Anyone who wants to understand what China and the Chinese are like will find great pleasure, and sometimes pain, in reading it -- John Simpson Acute and moving – a frank, unsparing, yet tender portrait of young women searching for happiness and purpose in a fast-shifting world -- Tania Branigan, author of 'Red Memory' A portrait of the country through four women who grew up there in the eighties and nineties - and refused to accept the life laid out for them. Activists, factory workers, pig farmers turned students: they provide incredible insight into the lives of ordinary Chinese people -- Best Books of 2024 * Sunday Times * Private Revolutions has the extraordinary, novelistic power to show how everyday lives on the other side of the world are actually lived that won Behind the Beautiful Forevers a Pulitzer . . . A landmark work -- Felix Martin Through the eyes of a quartet of women who were born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, Yang provides a fascinating portrait of womanhood and society in a rapidly evolving - and increasingly repressive - global superpower -- Waterstones, Best Books of 2024 A powerful and sometimes heartbreaking picture of the making of modern China. Brilliant -- Tim Harford