Shen Tong. Almost a Revolution: The Story of a Chinese Student’s Journey from Boyhood to Leadership in Tiananmen Square, University of Michigan Press (October 15, 1998).

Dai, Sijie. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. New York: Random House, Anchor Books, 2002. A novel full of ironic humor showing perennial Chinese rural life through the eyes of young people sent to the countryside.

Cheng, Nien. Life and Death in Shanghai. HarperCollins Publishers; New Ed edition (January 1995). A classic; the moving story by a Chinese Christian of one family’s suffering from fanatical attacks on educated, urban Chinese with foreign connections.

Jin, Ha. Waiting. New York: Random House, Pantheon Books, 1999. A National Book Award winner that tells a poignant story of the quiet desperation of family and work life in the late Mao era.

Chang, Jung (Jenny). Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. Touchstone; Reprint edition (August 12, 2003). The stories of three generations – a concubine in imperial China, a Nationalist fighting the Japanese, and a young Red Guard – are a lively introduction to modern Chinese history.