Little Fat Four: A Chinese Woman's Memoir of Survival

In the footsteps of Wild Swans and Red Azalea comes the fearlessly honest memoir of Eileen Kan. Alone and on the run, she survived war, rape, slave labor, and starvation, protected only by her resourcefulness and tenacious will to survive. This is her unflinching story, told in her own words. As the child of a wealthy general under the Last Emperor, Eileen had everything except love. But when war shattered her self-indulgent life, she was forced to flee from one end of China to the other, shedding family, treasure, and her pride along the way. Destitute and desperate when the Communists took over, she was confined in a commune to do slave labor. And when her health was broken, she was exiled to the countryside, where she endured the grueling poverty of the peasants. Many of her ordeals are forbidden knowledge in China today. Unlike the millions who perished in those deadly years, Eileen endured, ultimately forging an independent life. Set against the backdrop of the 1989 student democracy demonstrations, Eileen's unique story is a moving narrative of resiliency and the strength of the human spirit.