TIMINGS
Doors: 19:00
Starts: 19:20
Seated (unreserved)
Tickets: £20
Plus £2 venue levy
Age: 14+, under 16s must be accompanied by an adult
Presented by Brighton & Hove Speakers Festival
Click here to view all Brighton & Hove Speakers Festival events
Nearly fifty years ago, Jung Chang's Wild Swans told the story of three generations of women in her family and became a global phenomenon, selling in the tens of millions and introducing readers worldwide to the human reality behind decades of Chinese history — from the last emperor through Mao's rule to the reforms that followed.
Now, in the eagerly awaited Fly, Wild Swans, already a bestseller and named a Book of the Year by multiple major publications, Chang brings that story into the present, tracing her family's — and China's — journey through the decades since, as the nation has become a global superpower under Xi Jinping. At its heart, this is a tribute to Chang's mother and a meditation on how the past continues to shape the present. Fellow authors have called it a profoundly moving and revealing portrait of both a family and the deeper traumas of modern China.
Chang is also the author of acclaimed biographies of Mao Zedong, Empress Dowager Cixi and the Soong sisters, with books translated into more than forty languages and banned throughout mainland China. Born in Sichuan, she left for Britain in 1978. This is a rare chance to hear one of modern China's most important chroniclers reflect on memory, family and a nation in flux. A Q&A session follows.