Mao: The Unknown Story
Mao US Edition
Empress Dowager Cixi UK Edition

Praise for Jung Chang

Jung Chang awarded CBE for services to Literature and to History:

Jung with her CBE for services to literature and to history, 20/03/2024. Photo by Yui Mok/PA Wire.

Jung with her CBE for services to literature and to history, 20/03/2024. Photo by Yui Mok/PA Wire.

Wild Swans author Jung Chang awarded CBE for services to literature | The Independent

Reviews for, ‘Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China’

‘Few can match Chang’s ability to bring Chinese history and politics to life through deeply felt personal narrative, and few have shaped western understanding of China as broadly. Nearly 35 years on from the book that made her name, this story of suffering and success has the air of a closing chapter, a reckoning with both her achievements and the cost of the path she chose’

THE GUARDIAN

‘Readers cherish Chang’s books for offering glimpses of a vast and opaque nation. Fly, Wild Swans again demonstrates Chang’s ability to explore subject matter of significant weight in prose that is a pleasure to read’

THE I PAPER

‘Packed with poignant snapshots of family history and juicy episodes of literary life under state scrutiny … the follow-up to her 1991 bestseller is both a tribute to her uncrushable mother and a powerful portrait of censorship and shifting attitudes in Xi’s China’

FINANCIAL TIMES

‘A testament to her dedication to her mother, and to family love that persists despite barriers. It will captivate fans of Chang’s earlier work’

IRISH INDEPENDENT

‘Painful. Astonishing. Honest. Profoundly revealing as a portrait both of a family and of the deeper traumas that lie at the heart of modern China’

RORY STEWART

Fly, Wild Swans is another wonder book from Jung Chang. Elegiac and beautifully written, I am quite blown away by it’

LADY ANTONIA FRASER

‘Jung Chang’s powerful and profoundly moving sequel to Wild Swans has been well worth the wait. Her and her remarkable mother’s story since the end of Wild Swans intertwines fascinatingly with that of national socialist modern China, with their love-filled human story threatened by hideous Communist oppression, all over again. Threatened, but because of their bravery and evident decency, never crushed’

ANDREW ROBERTS

‘Far more than a sequel, Fly Wild Swans is the elegiac account by Jung Chang of the literary life that made her famous and the price she has paid for being a loyal daughter’

MICHAEL SHERIDAN

Links:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/fly-wild-swans-jung-chang-sequel-review/

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/fly-wild-swans-my-mother-myself-china-jung-chang-review-zxndbtg6l

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/sep/15/fly-wild-swans-by-jung-chang-review-a-daughter-of-china-speaks-again?CMP=share_btn_url

Wild Swans Jung Chang: ‘My mother is dying in China, but my writing has made it too dangerous to visit her’ | The Independent

Fly, Wild Swans — Jung Chang brings her epic memoir up to date – The Financial Times

Freida_Hughes_www.independent.co.uk/voices-gallery-royal-academy-poem

Woman’s Hour – Jung Chang – BBC Sounds

‘China can’t be dragged to the bad old days,’ says Chinese-British author Jung Chang – Channel 4 News

Wild Swans’ is the Sunday Times Bestsellers 8th most popular book in the past 50 years!

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary Newspaper Front Cover 18/08/2024

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary Newspaper Front Cover 18/08/2024

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary; Jung Chang Article by Christina Lamb 18/08/2024

Sunday Times Bestsellers 50th Anniversary;
Jung Chang Article by Christina Lamb 18/08/2024

You can read the Sunday Times article online using the link below: 

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/jung-chang-wild-swans-interview-9hg05lvt0

Read more praise for Jung Chang

News & Events

  • ‘Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China’ is now published

    FLY.... Book Cover Pic

  • Jung Chang’s Public Speaking Events

     

    Sunday 14th September
    7pm: HOW TO ACADEMY – LONDON
    Venue: Royal Geographical Society

    Monday 22nd September
    7.30pm: CHORLEYWOOD BOOKSHOP
    Venue: Memorial Hall, Chorleywood

    Friday 10th October
    HENLEY LITERARY FESTIVAL

    Saturday 11th October
    10am: CLIVEDEN LITERARY FESTIVAL

    Sunday 12th October
    2pm: CHELTENHAM FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE

    Saturday 18th October
    6.15pm: ILKLEY LITERARY FESTIVAL

    Sunday 19th October
    2pm: MANCHESTER LITERARY FESTIVAL
    Venue: Central Library

    Thursday 23rd October
    7pm: TOPPING BATH

    Friday 24th October
    2pm: YEOVIL BOOK FESTIVAL – WATERSTONES

    Sunday 26th October
    6pm: WIMBLEDON BOOK FESTIVAL

    Thursday 20th November
    6pm: FOLKSTONE BOOK FESTIVAL

    Wednesday 26th November
    6pm: HATCHARDS CHRISTMAS CUSTOMER EVENING
    187 Piccadilly, W1J 9LE

    Sunday 30th November
    HAY WINTER WEEKEND

    2026———————————

    Saturday 28th February
    3pm: FAVERSHAM LITERARY FESTIVAL

    Thursday 5th March
    6pm: ALDEBURGH LITERARY FESTIVAL
    Venue: Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh

About Jung Chang

Jung Chang
Jung Chang at a gate of the Forbidden City where Empress Dowager Cixi lived.

Jung Chang is the best-selling author of Wild Swans, which The Asian Wall Street Journal called the most widely read book about China, and Mao: The Unknown Story (with Jon Halliday), which was described by Time as “an atom bomb of a book.”
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