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Praised for her lyrical writing and historical knowledge, Anchee Min is the author of the bestselling memoir, Red Azalea and the novel Becoming Madame Mao. Growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China, Min spent time in a labor camp and was chosen for a lead role in a propagandist movie before the Mao communist regime collapsed. The New York Times Book Review said that Red Azalea, her account of that time, exists as "a powerful political as well as literary statement." Wild Ginger chronicles the coming-of-age of two young girls in Shanghai in the late 1960s and early 1970s.