Happy Birthday, Anchee Min!

Born January 14, 1957, Chinese-American Author

Min Anchee was born in Shanghai, China on January 14, 1957. As a child, she was a member of the Little Red Guards, a student-led paramilitary social movement.

At age 17, her family sent her to a collective farm where she was forced to endure horrific conditions and was put to work for eighteen hours a day. The prolonged hours and cruel working conditions led to a spinal cord injury.

While working at the farm, a team of talent scouts from Shanghai Film Studio discovered Min. She won the lead role in a propaganda film inspired by Madame Mao – a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and political figure. The film, however, never finished production.  

Following the downfall of Madame Mao, the community shunned Min and treated her badly for her association with the former actress. As a result of being shut out, Min became depressed and reached the point of contemplating suicide.

With the assistance and support of a friend along with the sponsorship of her aunt living in Singapore, Min obtained a passport and applied to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois. Upon emigrating to the United States in 1984, it was discovered that, contrary to what she had put on her visa application, she did not speak English, and immigration officials almost deported her back to China.

After moving to the U.S., Min worked multiple jobs and continued to learn English by watching episodes of Sesame Street.

Min graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Fine Arts. Her first book, a memoir titled Red Azalea, was published in 1994.

Visit the author’s website


We Recommend

Our expert staff members have selected some great reads! View more selections in our catalog and download the reading list.

The Cooked Seed

In 1994, Anchee Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution. Red Azalea became an international bestseller and propelled her career as a successful, critically acclaimed author. Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of America, without language, money, or a clear path.

Empress Orchid

Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story of a young concubine who becomes China’s last empress. Min introduces the beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid, and weaves an epic of the country girl who seized power through seduction, murder, and endless intrigue. When China is threatened by enemies, she alone seems capable of holding the country together.

Pearl of China

Arriving in late 19th-century China with her missionary parents, Buck is soon fascinated by her new home and strikes up a friendship with a young Chinese girl named Willow. The two become inseparable, even as civil war, failed relationships, and world conflicts threaten all they hold dear.

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