Jung Chang Interviewed by Nick Higham

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Wild Swans author Jung Chang talks about her new biography of three women who helped to shape the course of modern Chinese history.

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a story of sisterhood, revolution and betrayal. Chang looks at the lives of the most famous sisters in China, the Soongs. Ching-Ling married the ‘Father of China’, Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Mao’s vice-chair. May-ling was Madame Chiang Kai-shek and first lady of pre-Communist nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right. Ei-ling became Chiang’s unofficial main adviser and one of China’s richest women. Chang explains how all three enjoyed huge privilege but also endured constant danger. They remained emotionally close even when they found themselves in opposite camps.

Chang rose to international fame with the publication of Wild Swans, the story of China told through three generations of women in her family. Her books, which also include Mao: The Unknown Story and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine who Launched Modern China, have sold more than 15 million copies outside mainland China, where they are banned.

Here she talks to BBC journalist Nick Higham, who was the BBC’s first ever media correspondent and, until recently, presenter of Meet the Author on the BBC news channel.