🌆🌳 Private Revolutions 🌳🌆

• Yuan Yang @yuanforearleywoodley

I was so kindly sent this by Bloomsbury Creator Circle. It’s not the type of book I’d immediately gravitate towards in a bookstore, but one of my goals at the beginning of this year was to read more non-fiction.

Penned by a Chinese-born British MP, Private Revolutions is the story of four women born in China and their experiences and struggled with social mobility, in a newly-capitalist China that is rapidly evolving and growing at an exponential rate.
We follow Siyue, Leiya, and June, who are all born in rural China. I found the disparity between lifestyles in rural and urban areas so interest, and Yang really explores the tradition of migration to the big cities and the effect this has on the rural populations. The fourth woman we follow is Sam, born to an urban middle-class family, who leads a relatively graced life until she’s exposed the harsh reality of working conditions and then becomes a labour activist. We follow the women from their childhoods to their mid-thirties, and despite being just over 250 pages long, I felt I knew the women so well by the end.

This book really highlighted the importance of education, social mobility and the effect of the change in China’s economic rise on an individual level, all while being very readable. I’d recommend to anyone looking to get more into non-fiction, and anyone who is interested in politics on an inter-personal level!

Thank you so much to Bloomsbury @bloomsburypublishing for exposing me to a story I might not otherwise have read!