Xinran
Hardcover | Pages: 224 pages Rating: 4.08 | 2293 Users | 306 Reviews
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| Original Title: | Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of the lost daughters of China |
| ISBN: | 0701184027 (ISBN13: 9780701184025) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | China |
Chronicle Toward Books Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love
Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother is made up of the stories of Chinese mothers whose daughters have been wrenched from them, and also brings us the voices of some adoptive mothers from different parts of the world. These are stories which Xinran could not bring herself to tell previously - because they were too painful and close to home. In the footsteps of Xinran's Good Women of China, this is personal, immediate, full of harrowing, tragic detail but also uplifting, tender moments.Ten chapters, ten women and many stories of heartbreak, including her own: Xinran once again takes us right into the lives of Chinese women - students, successful business women, midwives, peasants, all with memories which have stained their lives. Whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions or hideous economic necessity... these women had to give up their daughters for adoption, others were forced to abandon them - on city streets, outside hospitals, orphanages or on station platforms - and others even had to watch their baby daughters being taken away at birth, and drowned. Here are the 'extra-birth guerrillas' who travel the roads and the railways, evading the system, trying to hold onto more than one baby; naive young student girls who have made life-wrecking mistakes; the 'pebble mother' on the banks of the Yangzte still looking into the depths for her stolen daughter; peasant women rejected by their families because they can't produce a male heir; and finally there is Little Snow, the orphaned baby fostered by Xinran but 'confiscated' by the state.
The book sends a heartrending message from their birth mothers to all those Chinese girls who have been adopted overseas (at the end of 2006 there were over 120,000 registered adoptive families for Chinese orphans, almost all girls, in 27 countries), to show them how things really were for their mothers, and to tell them they were loved and will never be forgotten.
Describe Appertaining To Books Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love
| Title | : | Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love |
| Author | : | Xinran |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 224 pages |
| Published | : | February 4th 2010 by Chatto & Windus (first published 2010) |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. Cultural. China. Parenting. Adoption. Asia. History |
Rating Appertaining To Books Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love
Ratings: 4.08 From 2293 Users | 306 ReviewsRate Appertaining To Books Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love
Xinran is that rare, rare non-fiction writer that puts you completely into her interview conversations, as if you were standing next to her or sitting beside sucking up the bowl of noodles one at a time, just as she is. And listening.Not only with accurate dialog but with each figment of emotional or locational context to that exact interview. And in doing so she imbeds you within the cultural and societal diameters of all consequence and onus. She is a gifted writer with an incredibleXinran has given myself and all others adopted from China such an incredible gift by writing this book. Before reading this book, I had a very different-and angry-way of viewing my traumatic situation. Her heartwrenching stories about the Chinese mothers' situation has changed everything for me. Each time Xinran told a story about a Chinese mother I would think, this could be MY birth mother. She painted a mental portrait in my mind of a woman who brought me into the world, and a woman who,
Xinran has written a love letter. It is written from the heart of China to all her adoptive daughters that are spread throughout the world. Like all love stories, beauty, pain, self-sacrifice, commitment, endurance, separation and reunification are all themes. Xinran pierces the silence of Chinese women, illuminating the complex realities of the one-child policy, abandonment, adoption, social relationships, poverty and survival. It is a difficult read, full of harsh realism. It is not a book you
Journalist, women's advocate, and adoption charity director/founder, Xinran provides an incredible insight into the stories and insights into the women and their families in China who give up their daughters.Intercountry adoption is a personal interest of mine, and I found this book heartbreaking and an eye opener. There are so many reasons why children are abandoned or worse in China. Many people immediately turn to the 'one child policy' as a blanket reason. There are pressures from family to
A tragic and enlightening look into mothers and baby girls in China. It is written for Chinese girls that have been adopted by foreign families, so that they can have an idea of why their mothers may have given them up, and to know where they came from. Written by Xinran, a Chinese woman who had a radio show and collected stories of women all over China. As she studied these women, she learned more and more about the stories of mothers who had to give up their babies. So many stories, so many
This book has to be one of the most eye-opening, heart wrenching and influential books I have read this year. It tells the story of Chinese mothers who were oppressed under the rule of socialism and the one-child policy, and who had to abandon their daughters to orphanages, streets and hospitals, or who even had to kill their own child. The stories are awful. I never knew the actual ramifications of the one-child policy and how it has affected the Chinese people especially in the rural area. I'm
This book breaks my heart. Rather poorly written and somewhat disjointed. After reading this book I cannot help but feel that some cultures have no empathy for their fellow humans, perhaps I am being a little harsh but detailed accounts of girl babies being murdered immediately after birth does not make easy reading. The story of the mother who was somewhat inconvenienced by having a child and eventually left her in an orphanage makes me angry not sad. Now she is stricken with guilt at her
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