Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy “Remarkable . . . Barbara Demick movingly traces this history of overseas Chinese adoptions and their ripple effects on both sides of the Pacific.”—The Wall Street Journal WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER J. WELLES MEMORIAL PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The New Yorker, The Economist On a warm day in September 2000, a woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut behind her brother’s home in China’s Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions to her family but also not her first children. Living under the shadow of China’s notorious one-child policy, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn’t imagine she could be sent as far as the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world.