Jung Chang: Fly, Wild Swans. My Mother, Myself and China

Time and date

Wednesday 15 July 2026

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8:30 pm

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Fly, Wild Swans is the long-awaited sequel to Jung Chang’s Wild Swans, a book that defined a generation through an epic personal history of Jung, her mother and grandmother – ‘three daughters of China’. Wild Swans took us from her grandmother’s birth in 1909 under the last emperor to the end of the Mao era in 1978 with Jung’s emigration to Britain. At the time she was one of the first Chinese to leave Communist China for the West. Nearly half a century on, China has risen from a decrepit, isolated state to a global power. Through those decades, Jung’s life has been intimately entwined with her native land. Fly, Wild Swans is the sequel and brings the story of Jung’s family – along with that of China – up to date.

Admission: €20

China is now at another watershed moment: Xi Jinping is seeking to turn the country back towards the old Maoist days and build a Communist state with capitalist features. This new era is greatly affecting the lives of Jung and her mother who still lives in China. Through the arc of their respective lives, Jung gives an immersive, deeply movingand unforgettable account of what it is like to live in a communist dictatorship and the threats modern China poses to the international world order.

Writer

Jung Chang

Jung Chang was born in Sichuan Province, China in 1952. During the Cultural Revolution she worked as a peasant, a ‘barefoot’ doctor, a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming an...

Jung Chang: Fly, Wild Swans. My Mother, Myself and China

Time and date

Location

Writer

Jung Chang

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