Birdless Summer (China : Autobiography, History, Book 3)

I was given a copy of this book, with only a pink sugarpaper cover, on a beach in Sri Lanka in 1981. It is still on my bookshelf. Han Suyin is a half Chinese, half Belgian doctor and writer, who returned to China during the Japanese invasion of her country prior to World War II and the civil war. Her autobiographical account - she was only in her early twenties and married to a member of Chiang Kaishek's coterie - combines the personal with excellent explanations of chinese history, although it does help to have an atlas to hand as you read it. First published in 1968, the book begs the question how far she felt able to express her true feelings, at the time of the Cultural Revolution, but politically, the novel leans to sympathy with Mao's Red Army during the civil war. Highly recommended.