Author: Kent Wong
Series: N/A
Genre: Nonfiction/ Memoir/ Biography
Publisher: Abrams Press
Publication Date: April 27, 2021
Edition: 320 pages, Kindle Edition
Source: Library
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Bookshop | Powell's | Thriftbooks
Synopsis:
When Kent Wong was a young boy, his father, a patriotic Chinese official in the customs office in Hong Kong, joined an insurrection at work and returned with the family to the newly established People's Republic of China. Hailed as heroes, they settled in the southern city of Canton. But Mao's China was dangerous and unstable, with landlords executed en masse and millions dying of starvation during the Great Leap Forward.
Kent Wong's Swimming to Freedom is a memoir of a childhood amid revolutionary times, where boyish adventures and school days mixed with dire poverty and political persecution, and a moving story of an inextinguishable yearning to be free. Mao's Hundred Flower Campaign ensnared Kent's father. A decade later the Cultural Revolution closed schools, plunged the country into chaos, and scattered Kent and his sisters to disparate villages where they struggled to eke out a bare existence. Kent began to realize that with higher education closed to him (as the son of a "capitalist rightist"), he had no future in China. So, when he hooked up with a dissident underground and heard about fellow countrymen braving extraordinary hardship to reach freedom by swimming across miles of open water to Hong Kong, he decided to risk his life for a better future.
Swimming to Freedom is an extraordinary account of a largely unknown chapter in history, when an estimated half million "Freedom Swimmers" risked everything to escape hardship and oppression. It is a gripping memoir and a moving testament to the human spirit.
Kent Wong's Swimming to Freedom is a memoir of a childhood amid revolutionary times, where boyish adventures and school days mixed with dire poverty and political persecution, and a moving story of an inextinguishable yearning to be free. Mao's Hundred Flower Campaign ensnared Kent's father. A decade later the Cultural Revolution closed schools, plunged the country into chaos, and scattered Kent and his sisters to disparate villages where they struggled to eke out a bare existence. Kent began to realize that with higher education closed to him (as the son of a "capitalist rightist"), he had no future in China. So, when he hooked up with a dissident underground and heard about fellow countrymen braving extraordinary hardship to reach freedom by swimming across miles of open water to Hong Kong, he decided to risk his life for a better future.
Swimming to Freedom is an extraordinary account of a largely unknown chapter in history, when an estimated half million "Freedom Swimmers" risked everything to escape hardship and oppression. It is a gripping memoir and a moving testament to the human spirit.
A deeply personal, heart-wrenching memoir of the author's upbringing in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution and his tenacious flight to freedom against all odds.
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I don't often read non-fiction, so I don't review it much either. I think this is the second non-fiction book I have finished in a while. The other being Jennette McCurdy's book earlier this year. "Reviewing" memoirs isn't the same as reviewing fiction (obviously). I just hope to convey how this book affected me.
I think everybody should read this book. And I honestly mean everybody.This book is very insightful about a time in history that seems to be a combination of ignored and hidden. I didn't know anything about this time in history. Sure, it's Chinese history, but it did have an impact on a significant portion of the world. American history shines a light on the sins other countries have committed, but have been radio silence about what I learned reading this.
It's just really hard to articulate how important I feel it is to read this book. There's no way I can explain it. It's just a very ignored part of world history that I think needs to be remembered and talked about.
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