Description

The extraordinary and riveting story of separated Chinese twins, with one twin seized by the authorities and adopted into America, by the Samuel Johnson-winning author of Nothing to Envy.

In 2000, a Chinese woman gave birth to twins in a bamboo grove, trying to avoid detection by the government because she already had two daughters. Two years later, an American couple travelled to Shaoyang to adopt a Chinese toddler they thought had been abandoned.

Their understanding had been that China’s brutal one-child policy was leading to hundreds of abandoned girls, desperate for the care of adopted parents. What they didn’t know – and what award-winning journalist Barbara Demick uncovered in 2007, while working as a correspondent in Beijing – was that their daughter had been snatched from her beloved family and her identical twin. Under China’s one-child policy hundreds of poor Chinese were giving up their children due to soaring fines and threats of violence. More sinister still, international demand for adoptees was sky-rocketing, and local officials were forcibly seizing children and trafficking them to orphanages, who were selling them abroad.

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove tells the gripping story of separated twins, their respective fates in China and the USA, and Barbara Demick’s role in reuniting them against huge odds. Painting a rich portrait of China’s history and culture, it asks questions about the roots, impact and consequences of China’s one-child policy, the ethics of international adoption, and, ultimately, the assumptions and narratives we hold about the quality of lives lived in the East and the West.

Publisher Review

Barbara Demick’s ability to weave intimate stories into the fabric of historical events is second to none. This is not only a classic, emotional tale of twins separated as babies, but also an investigation into the Chinese political system which allowed local officials to kidnap baby girls in the name of the one-child policy. An unforgettable story about modern China, and our indivisible humanity — Lindsey Hilsum Extraordinarily good. A superb storyteller, Demick melds the personal, the historical and the political seamlessly * New Internationalist * A vivid, exhaustively researched, and ground-level view of the impact of history on people’s lives… Compelling * New Statesman * Demick is at once an intrepid reporter and scrupulous historian * Guardian * Demick is a master of narrative non-fiction * TLS * Powerful and remarkable, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove amplifies the voices of the forgotten. This story of separated twins is not just about two little girls deeply entwined, even across continents – it is about the thousands of families torn apart by policies, greed, and misinformation — Xinran