Bad Bad Girl

Author(s): Jen, Gish,
Binding: Hardback,
Date of Publication: 06/11/2025,
Pagination: 352 pages,
Series: N/A,
Imprint: Granta Books,
Published By: GRANTA BOOKS ,
Book Classification: Memoirs,
Dimensions: 225 x 145 x 34
ISBN13/EAN/SKU: 9781803513249

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My mother had died, but still I heard her voice...

Growing up in an affluent neighbourhood in 1930s Shanghai, Loo Shu-hsin is told that it is 'no good for a girl to be smart' - and yet when rumours of the revolution reach their enclave, she is the one sent abroad for an education. In New York, she meets Chao-Pei, a Chinese engineering student, and they set out to make a life together. By the time their daughter - Gish Jen - is born, her parents have only sporadic contact with their families, who are locked in repressive Maoist China. And in her struggle to discipline her American daughter, Loo Shu-hsin finds herself repeating the punishing refrains - 'Bad bad girl! You don't know how to talk!' - that punctured her own childhood.

Bad Bad Girl is a compelling exploration of a mother's life in exile from one of America's finest stylists.