Adeline Yen Mah

See books by this author on Amazon

BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: Falling Leaves Return To Their Roots: The True Story Of An Unwanted Chinese Daughter: Description:
an illuminating account of the destructive nature of family relationships set against a backfrop of china in change

Title: Chinese Cinderella: The Secret Story Of An Unwanted Daughter (puffin Teenage Books): Description:
Adeline Yen Mah first told her story in the emotive, bestselling Falling Leaves, an adult autobiography which charted her passage from childhood through to womanhood. Here in Chinese Cinderella she relates her tale for younger readers, detailing her difficult life as an unwanted and deeply misunderstood child. Christened with the Chinese name Jun-ling, her mother died just a few days after her birth, and from that moment her fate within her family was sealed. As one of seven siblings, including two children from her father's second marriage, Jun-ling struggled to maintain her dignity from a young age, treated as she was with a vicious contempt by all around her at home, apart from her beloved Aunt Baba and her elderly grandfather. Growing up as she did in a relatively wealthy Chinese family in the 40s and 50s, the privileges that money would normally give such a child passed her by, and even her intelligence which shone through as early as kindergarten could not save her from the emotional brutality of a family who simply did not love her.Jun-ling¹s story, written from the very heart of the successful adult she has become, is a stinging and hostile tale of a child whose young life was blighted by lack of care and affection and is an emotional roller coaster journey which, without actually falling into the trap of melodrama, will wring tears of rage, sadness and deep, deep frustration from any reader.

Title: Falling Leaves: The True Story Of An Unwanted Chinese Daughter: Description:
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 the European concessions and thereafter. The text shows how east connects with west and offers an insight into a particular kind of chinese life.

Title: A Thousand Pieces Of Gold: A Memoir Of China's Past Through Its Proverbs: Description:
The author of the international bestsellers Watching the Tree and Falling Leaves has always been fascinated by proverbs and their importance and use in China. Both her book titles are based on such proverbs. The majority of Chinese proverbs are drawn from the 1st century, when the First Emperor of all China established his leadership over the whole country and its warring kingdoms. In ancient China, a scholar's conversation would be studded with appropriate sayings, and a man's status in society would be defined by his use and knowledge of proverbs. In modern China, much of this is still true, and proverbs are used daily. Adeline Yen Mah introduces us to the whole rich picture of the first century BC when after the long wars between states, China was finally united and the richness of the literature and art could flourish. She portrays the leaders, the plots and the counter-revolutions with great vividness and liveliness so that even those ignorant of Chinese history become absorbed. And as in all her other books, she relates the historical episodes and the proverbs derived from these to experiences in her own life. One of the major expressions of this age was of course the First Emperor's tomb with its terracotta soldiers, of horses and carriages and the stones of the building. The re-finding of this monument -- now open to us all -- and Adeline Yen Mah's own experiences there, are extraordinary. A Thousand Pieces of Gold, following Watching the Tree and Falling Leaves, is a personal account by a much loved author, but it is also a lively history of the fascinating period of civilisation when Europe was barely out of the stone age.