Red Azalea is Anchee Mins celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Maos China. As a child, she was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Maos political operas, Mins life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world. A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, Anchee Mins memoir is exceptional for its candor, its poignancy, its courage, and for its prose which Newsweek calls as delicate and evocative as a traditional Chinese brush painting.