Original language:
English Translated from: English
Authors: Min, Anchee
Translated by: Groblytė, Jovita
ISBN: 978-5-415-02094-2
Published in: Vilnius
Published on: 2009
Publisher: Vaga
Red Azalea is an autobiography of Anchee Min. The book is divided into three parts which are about author’s life during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China. In the book, Min openly tells a story of her life in which sexual freedom is freely questioned as a powerful political statement. The author accurately describes a society of the Chinese Communist country.
The first part of the book tells us about Anchee Min’s childhood in Shanghai where she honestly talks about the use of political propaganda in society, especially children who are taught to be perfect revolutionaries of the Party as a sign of loyalty to Chairman Mao. Min loved singing Madame Mao’s operas and knew them all as well as she read and knew all quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. She was accepted as a member of the Little Red Guard and also appointed as a head of this social movement.
After the girl turned seventeen she was sent to work at a labor collective, the second part of the book is about author’s life in there, her first love, homosexuality and disappointment in the Party. During the critical time at the labor collective she was selected as an actress for a movie of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Red Azalea. The third part of the book is all about the competition between potential actresses for the main character of the movie, a new romance and Mao’s death. After Mao’s death in 1976, Madame Mao was sentenced to death and Anchee Min was supposed to go back at the labor collective but with a help of her friend she stayed in the film studio where she worked the past six years. In 1984 Min is accepted to go to United States of America with a help of her actress friend.
Anchee Min wrote Red Azalea for eight years in English language. During that time she managed to create a masterpiece which mirrors the last years of Mao’s China.