Synopses & Reviews
A Thousand Miles of Dreams is an evocative and intimate biography of two Chinese sisters who took very different paths in their quest to be
independent women. Ling Shuhao arrived in Cleveland in 1925 to study
medicine in the middle of a U.S. crackdown on Chinese immigrant communities, and her effort to assimilate began. She became an American named Amy, while her sister Ling Shuhua burst onto the Beijing literary scene as a writer of short fiction. Shuhua's tumultuous affair with Virginia Woolf's nephew during his years in China eventually drew her into the orbit of the Bloomsbury group. The sisters were Chinese "modern girls" who sought to forge their own way in an era of social revolution that unsettled relations between men and women, and among nations. Daughters of an imperial scholar-official and a concubine, they followed trajectories unimaginable to their parents' generation.
Biographer Sasha Su-Ling Welland stumbled across their remarkable stories while recording her grandmother's oral history. She discovered the secret Amy had jealously hidden from family in the U.S.-her sister's fame as a Chinese woman writer-as well as intriguing discrepancies in the sisters' versions of the past. Shaped by the social history of their day, the journeys of these extraordinary women spanned the twentieth century and three continents in a saga of East-West cultural exchange and personal struggle.
Review
"Welland wisely refrains from intruding on the narration, allowing her
fascinating topic to speak for itself. Scholarly and 'serious' in its depth and breadth of research, Welland's book is also highly readable and full of rich detail....This is a book that enlightens as much as it delights and remains with you long after the reading."
Seattle Times
Review
"Welland is an anthropologist with a novelist's eye for the art of both
making lives and making books. She weaves biography, memoir, genealogy,
social history, literary criticism, and theoretical reflection coherently, accessibly, and, indeed, beautifully."
Booklist (starred review)
Synopsis
*For the bibliography mentioned in the book, click here. A Thousand Miles of Dreams is an evocative and intimate biography of two Chinese sisters who took very different paths in their quests to be independent women. Ling Shuhao arrived in Cleveland in 1925 to study medicine in the middle of a U.S. crackdown on Chinese immigrant communities, and her effort to assimilate began. She became an American named Amy, while her sister Ling Shuhua burst onto the Beijing literary scene as a writer of short fiction. Shuhua's tumultuous affair with Virginia Woolf's nephew during his years in China eventually drew her into the orbit of the Bloomsbury group. The sisters were Chinese "modern girls" who sought to forge their own way in an era of social revolution that unsettled relations between men and women and among nations. Daughters of an imperial scholar-official and a concubine, they followed trajectories unimaginable to their parents' generation. Biographer Sasha Su-Ling Welland stumbled across their remarkable stories while recording her grandmother's oral history. She discovered the secret Amy had jealously hidden from family in the United States--her sister's fame as a Chinese woman writer--as well as intriguing discrepancies between the sisters' versions of the past. Shaped by the social history of their day, the journeys of these extraordinary women spanned the twentieth century and three continents in a saga of East-West cultural exchange and personal struggle. Visit the author's website for more information and upcoming events. http: //www.sashawelland.com/index.html
About the Author
Sasha Su-Ling Welland has woven together, in this biography, the remarkable lives of her grandmother and great-aunt. She is assistant professor of anthropology and women studies at the University of Washington in Seattle.