Anchee Min, whose novels and memoir bring to life the experience of coming of age in Communist China during the rule of Mao Zedong, will speak for the Assembly Series at 11 a.m. Nov. 10 in Graham Chapel.
Born in 1957 in Shanghai, Min came of age during the Cultural Revolution, a time when Chinese children learned to write “Long Live Chairman Mao” before being taught to write their names. She was chosen as a leader of the Little Red Guards and became completely indoctrinated into the new Chinese philosophy.
At age 17, she was among 100,000 students sent to labor camps, where they did backbreaking work with primitive tools.
In 1976, Min’s fate changed. The aging Mao was dying and his wife, Jiang Ching (Madame Mao), believing that the best way to win the hearts of the citizenry was through films, began a search to find the perfect “proletarian image” to star in her propaganda films.
Min was discovered working in a cotton field and began an acting career. But while the first film was in production, Mao died and Madame Mao fell from power.
As a result, all who were associated with her — including Min — were denounced.
In 1984, Min arrived in the United States, unable to speak English. In 1992, she published a best-selling memoir, Red Azalea, which became a New York Times Notable Book.
This was followed by the novels Katherine, Becoming Madame Mao, Wild Ginger and Empress Orchid.
Novelist Russell Banks wrote of Becoming Madame Mao: “Anchee Min, in her brilliant, poetic novel, has personalized that mythical figure Madame Mao, and in the process has transformed both the woman and the myth. … This is historical fiction of the first order.”
Assembly Series events are free and open to the public. For more information, go online to assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call 935-4620.