Forbidden City
Book description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A teenage girl living in 1960s China becomes Mao Zedong’s protégée and lover—and a heroine of the Cultural Revolution—in this “masterful” (The Washington Post) novel.
“A new classic about China’s Cultural Revolution . . . Think Succession, but add death and mayhem to the palace intrigue. .…
Why read it?
1 author picked Forbidden City as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
How do you tell stories about the people who don’t show up in history’s official records?
That’s the question Vaness Hua explores in Forbidden City, which was inspired by a couple of lines Hua read about Chairman Mao Zedong’s love of ballroom dancing. Party officials would bring young women to the Forbidden Palace to dance with Mao and his party faithful.
Any more detail about the lives of these young women is lost to history, but recreated with astonishing insight and beauty by Hua in Forbidden City. The main character, Mei Xiang, has to navigate the dangerous world of politics…
From Robyn's list on women who just won’t quit.
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