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Private Revolutions

By: Yuan Yang
Narrated by: Crystal Yu, Gabby Wong, Kae Alexander, Naomi Yang, Yuan Yang
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Summary

Bloomsbury presents Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang, read by Gabby Wong, Crystal Yu, Kae Alexander, Yuan Yang and Naomi Yang.

'As powerfully intimate as it is politically incendiary' VOGUE
'Private Revolutions could be a Netflix series, for family, violence and romance abound' IRISH TIMES
'A portrait of China through four women who refused to accept the life laid out for them. Incredible' SUNDAY TIMES
'A revelatory, moving and tender tale of hopes, fears and change' PETER FRANKOPAN
*A Sunday Times, Observer & BBC Highlight for 2024*

This is a book about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, in a society about to change beyond recognition.

It is about Leiya, who wants to escape the fate of the women in her village. Still underage, she bluffs her way on to the factory floor.
It is about June, who at fifteen sets what her family thinks is an impossible goal: to attend university rather than raise pigs.
It is about Siyue, ranked second-to-bottom of her English class, who decides to prove her teachers wrong.
And it is about Sam, who becomes convinced that the only way to change her country is to become an activist – even as the authorities slowly take her peers from the streets.

With unprecedented access to the lives, hopes, homes, dreams and diaries of four ordinary women over a period of six years, Private Revolutions gives a voice to those whose stories go untold. At a time of rising state censorship and suppression, it unearths the identity of modern Chinese society – and, through the telling, something of our own.

©2024 Yuan Yang (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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Interesting listen, blending historic change with individual lives

I enjoyed listening to this book. Yang designed the book intelligently, telling the stories of individuals by blending individual experience with the momentous changes and political backdrop of Modern China. The book gave a sense of the tensions that individual people, especially from rural and disadvantaged areas, have had to shoulder as their country has changed beyond recognition.

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Fascinating insights into women's lives

At first I thought the way the chapters are organised might make it hard to follow the threads of individual stories, but in the end I got absorbed by the details and fully immersed in each woman's story. It helped that each story had a different narrator and the narration was also excellent, although not all of the Chinese place names were pronounced correctly, but that was only a minor issue in an otherwise great listen.

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An engaging portrait of modern China

China is something one doesn’t really learn about in school. Yes it’s big, yes it’s nominally communist.

This book illuminates China from a 2D reference for “far away” to real people struggling or thriving against a backdrop of bureaucracy.

It is written in a clear engaging style, it has the clarity of Orwell’s travel writing, but with Kate Adie’s from our own correspondent’s quiet unobtrusive empathy.

Well worth a listen

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