Author Guide · Memoir and History
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At fourteen, Jung Chang was a Red Guard, “thrilled by my red armband”, as she later wrote. In the years that followed she worked as a peasant, a barefoot doctor, a steelworker and an electrician, while her parents, both Communist Party officials, were denounced and detained. In 1978 she left Sichuan for Britain on a scholarship, and in 1982 she became the first person from the People’s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. Her family memoir Wild Swans (1991) has sold more than 10 million copies and is banned in mainland China, as are all her books. This guide covers her six key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 6 key books · 1986–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Jung Chang has published six books: Wild Swans (1991), her memoir of three generations of women in twentieth-century China; Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, with Jon Halliday); Empress Dowager Cixi (2013); Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister (2019); its sequel-memoir Fly, Wild Swans (2025); and an early short biography, Madame Sun Yat-sen (1986). Start with Wild Swans. Read on for the order, the debate over the Mao biography, and where the history books fit.
Where to Start with Jung Chang
If you want her defining book
→ Wild Swans (1991) — the family memoir that made her name.
If you want to know what happened next
→ Fly, Wild Swans (2025) — the sequel, from 1978 to the present.
If you want the most debated book
→ Mao (2005) — the Mao biography written with Jon Halliday.
If you want narrative history about women in power
→ Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister (2019) — the three Soong sisters.
6 Jung Chang Books, in Order
Madame Sun Yat-sen
A short biography written with her husband, the historian Jon Halliday, for Penguin’s “Lives of Modern Women” series. Its subject is Soong Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen, who later served in Mao’s government. Chang returned to her, at much greater length, in Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister.
Wild Swans
The story of three generations: her grandmother, whose feet were bound and who became the concubine of a warlord general at fifteen; her mother, who joined the Communists and married a Party official; and Chang herself, from Red Guard to her departure for Britain in 1978. It won the NCR Book Award in 1992 and British Book of the Year in 1993, and has been translated into more than 30 languages. It is banned in mainland China. Alexandra Wood adapted it for the stage in 2012, for the American Repertory Theater and the Young Vic.
Mao
An 800-page biography, written with Jon Halliday after around a decade of research, that portrays Mao Zedong as a ruthless opportunist responsible for “well over 70 million deaths in peacetime”. It argues that the Long March legend was largely false and that Mao owed his rise to Stalin. Time called it “an atom bomb of a book”; many China scholars criticised its use of sources and its death toll.
Empress Dowager Cixi
A biography of Cixi, a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor who effectively ruled China from 1861 until her death in 1908. Against the usual picture of a reactionary tyrant, Chang presents her as an intelligent reformer who began China’s modernisation. The New York Times named it a Notable Book; Pamela Kyle Crossley, in the London Review of Books, was sceptical of its claims.
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister
The three Soong sisters of Shanghai: Ching-ling, who married Sun Yat-sen and later became Mao’s vice-chair; May-ling, who married Chiang Kai-shek and became a political figure in her own right; and Ei-ling, Chiang’s unofficial adviser and one of the richest women in China. Chang follows the sisters on both sides of the civil war.
Fly, Wild Swans
The sequel to Wild Swans, from her arrival in Britain in 1978 to the present. It covers the writing of Wild Swans and the Mao biography, China’s opening and the rise of Xi Jinping, and her relationship with her mother, who in the late 2010s told her not to return to China for fear she would be detained. It is dedicated “To my mother, whose deathbed I am unable to visit.”
In What Order to Read Jung Chang
The two memoirs belong together: Wild Swans ends in 1978 as Chang leaves China, and Fly, Wild Swans picks up from there. Read them in that order.
The three histories (Mao, Empress Dowager Cixi and Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister) stand alone and cover China from the late Qing dynasty to the death of Mao, so you can read them in historical order rather than publication order: Cixi first, then the Soong sisters, then Mao. Madame Sun Yat-sen is a short early sketch of a subject the Soong sisters book covers in full.
A reading path
1. Wild Swans (1991)
2. Fly, Wild Swans (2025)
3. Empress Dowager Cixi (2013)
4. Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister (2019)
5. Mao: The Unknown Story (2005)
Everything Else Jung Chang Published
Beyond the 6 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Anthologies
1
1 book · 1994
- 1994Another Provincea collection with Lynn Pan and Henry Zhao, edited by Jessie Lim and Li Yan
The years · 1952–2025
Quick facts about Jung Chang
- Known for
- Jung Chang is known for Wild Swans, a family memoir of twentieth-century China that is banned in her home country, and for a fiercely debated biography of Mao.
- 1952
- Born in Yibin, Sichuan
- 1978
- Leaves China for Britain
- 1991
- Wild Swans
- 2025
- Fly, Wild Swans
- Born
- 25 March 1952, Yibin, Sichuan; both parents were Communist Party officials
- Cultural Revolution
- Red Guard at 14; then peasant, barefoot doctor, steelworker and electrician
- Education
- Sichuan University; PhD in linguistics, University of York, 1982
- Moved to Britain
- 1978; lives in London
- Married
- The historian Jon Halliday, her co-author on two books
- Honours
- CBE for services to literature and history (2024 New Year Honours)
- In China
- All her books are banned in mainland China
The red mark is 1991: Wild Swans, her memoir of three generations of women in China.
How Jung Chang Writes: History Through Women and Families
Chang writes history through individual lives, and often through women. Wild Swans follows her grandmother, her mother and herself; Empress Dowager Cixi and Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister put women at the centre of stories usually told through their husbands and sons. Political events reach the reader as things that happen to a family: a father imprisoned, a mother denounced, a child kept out of school.
Her prose is plain and chronological, built from concrete detail rather than commentary: bound feet, a jeep, a red armband. The memoirs are told in the first person but keep the focus on what happened, and the histories use the same direct narrative, which is part of why they have reached readers far beyond academic history.
The histories argue as well as narrate, and that is where the debate starts. Mao and Cixi both overturn a standard view, Mao as a flawed visionary and Cixi as a reactionary, and critics have said the books push the evidence further than it goes. Readers who come to her through the memoirs should know that the histories are written with the same moral conviction.
Frequently asked questions about Jung Chang’s books
How many books has Jung Chang written?
Six books under her name: Madame Sun Yat-sen (1986), Wild Swans (1991), Mao: The Unknown Story (2005), Empress Dowager Cixi (2013), Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister (2019) and Fly, Wild Swans (2025). Two of them, the Sun Yat-sen and Mao biographies, were written with her husband Jon Halliday. She also contributed to the anthology Another Province (1994).
What are Jung Chang’s books in order?
Madame Sun Yat-sen (1986), Wild Swans (1991), Mao: The Unknown Story (2005), Empress Dowager Cixi (2013), Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister (2019) and Fly, Wild Swans (2025).
Where should I start with Jung Chang?
With Wild Swans, her family memoir. If you want to know what happened to her and her mother after 1978, follow it with Fly, Wild Swans.
What is Jung Chang’s most famous book?
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991). It won the NCR Book Award in 1992 and British Book of the Year in 1993, and has sold more than 10 million copies.
Is Wild Swans a true story?
Yes. It is a memoir and family history of Chang’s grandmother, her mother and herself, from the grandmother’s birth in 1909 to Chang’s departure for Britain in 1978.
Is there a sequel to Wild Swans?
Yes: Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China (2025). It covers her life in Britain from 1978, the writing of her books, and her relationship with her mother as China grew more repressive under Xi Jinping.
Why is Wild Swans banned in China?
It describes the famines, persecution and violence of Mao’s rule, including what happened to her own parents in the Cultural Revolution. All her books are banned in mainland China, although Chinese-language editions are published in Hong Kong and Taiwan and pirated copies circulate on the mainland.
Is Mao: The Unknown Story accurate?
It is disputed. The book, written with Jon Halliday, says Mao was responsible for “well over 70 million deaths in peacetime”. It was a bestseller and praised in much of the press, but many China scholars, among them Andrew Nathan, criticised its use of sources and found no clear basis for the 70 million figure; others, such as Richard Baum, called it thoroughly researched. Henry Kissinger called it one-sided but often thought-provoking.
Has Wild Swans been adapted?
It was adapted for the stage by Alexandra Wood and directed by Sacha Wares in 2012, first at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then at the Young Vic in London.
Is Jung Chang still alive?
Yes. She was born on 25 March 1952 in Yibin, Sichuan, and lives in London with her husband Jon Halliday. She was appointed CBE in the 2024 New Year Honours.
Footnotes
- Jung Chang — Wikipedia
- Biography — Jung Chang’s official website
- Mao: The Unknown Story, reviewed by Charles W. Hayford — Association for Asian Studies
- Fly, Wild Swans, reviewed — Church Times, 2025
- Wild Swans stage adaptation — BroadwayWorld, 2012
- Jung Chang: Books Kept Me Sane — Louisiana Channel, 2025
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“At the age of fifteen my grandmother became the concubine of a warlord general, the police chief of a tenuous national government of China.”
— Jung Chang, Wild Swans (1991), the first line
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