Overview

When the tides of history crash against the quiet shores of an ordinary life, the results can be both strange and devastating. Joseph Yen grew up in the shadow of civil war, revolution, and unrelenting political upheaval. Born into the household of a wealthy Shanghai industrialist, he might have expected a life of privilege and stability. Instead, the great storms of the age - national and domestic alike - swept him into a world of uncertainty. Moving with his mother to Beijing, the young Joseph witnessed the Communist victory and the radical transformations of the 1950s through the curious, unblinking eyes of a child. As he advanced through school, he felt both the thrill of political change and the tightening grip of ideology, alongside the persecution of friends and neighbours. Yet his private world was no less vivid: friendships, an awakening love for music and literature, and the first stirrings of his sexuality shaped his inner life. This memoir traces the arc of Joseph Yen's journey from his birth in 1942 to his exile from China in 1975. Through years marked by trauma, loss and profound hardship, he endured with wit, candour, and a keen fascination for the warp and weft of human existence. His story reminds us that the vast movements of history are often best understood through the small details of individual lives.

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Reviews

""A fascinating memoir of troubling times in China, Joseph Yen offers a very personal description of the dramatic changes from tradition to modernity, the passage of endless political movements and his own discovery of his sexuality with charming honesty."" - Frances Wood, Former Curator Chinese Collections, British Library; author of 'Did Marco Polo Go To China', 'Great Books of China' and other works ""A very personal memoir of a country in civil war, revolution and times of jarring change when a family collides with the new political realities of China's tumultuous, and often disastrous, rollercoaster twentieth century."" - Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking

Author Information

Joseph Yen was born in Shanghai in 1942 and moved with his mother to Beijing in 1946, as China was still gripped by civil war. He witnessed first-hand the Communist victory and the steady tightening of the CCP's control over the years that followed. He went on to study English language and literature at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute and, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, was assigned to work at Radio Peking. As political campaigns deepened, many of his friends and colleagues became entangled in factional struggles. Joseph himself was sent down to the countryside to 'learn from the peasants', an experience that convinced him he had no future in his homeland. In 1975 he was permitted to visit his father in Hong Kong, after which he left China and settled in England. He pursued a distinguished career as a broadcaster and journalist with the BBC Chinese Service, producing programmes and commentary for Chinese audiences worldwide. He is now retired and lives in London. Stephen Hallett and Wang LiliLili and Stephen are both students of language. Meeting in Beijing in 1980, they have drawn on their language skills throughout long careers: Lili as a broadcaster at the BBC World Service, Stephen as a documentary filmmaker and founder of a charity supporting disabled people in China. They have translated several works of Chinese literature and today divide their time between London and Beijing.

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