Once Upon a Time in the East: A Story of Growing Up

'This generation's Wild Swans' Daily Telegraph 'One of the most startling and fascinating memoirs I've read in recent years...a story of China' Libby Purves 'Impressive...moving...exhilarating' Financial Times 'Guo is rebellious, flamboyant and fundamentally optimistic...fascinating' Scotland on Sunday 'This stunning memoir picks up where Jung Chang's 1991 bestseller Wild Swans left off...This book will make your jaw drop, then clench in anger' Five stars, Sunday Telegraph 'Riveting...Guo is a bolder, angrier and more ambitious figure than her forebears' The Times Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her. When she is born her parents hand her over to a childless peasant couple in the mountains.