Things That Must Not be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China - Softcover
This memoir describes how a young boy builds a relationship with his aloof father and reconciles his twin heritages of Europe and China.
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The Eurasian son of a Chinese railroad executive, young David lives in a world of privilege until World War II. His father serves the Japanese while secretly working for the Resistance. After the war, with his father imprisoned, he leaves the country at the age of twelve, unsure that they will ever be reunited. This memoir was awarded the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for Nonfiction.
Michael David Kwan was born in China and spent his adult life in Canada. He died in May of 2001.
Winner of the 2002 Canada-Japan Literary Award
To grow up in Beijing in the 1930s was to become engulfed in the colossal struggle between ideologies, and between nations, that shaped modern China.
Born into privilege, separated from the filthy chaos of the city by servants and limousines and the stone walls of the Legation Quarter, Michael David Kwan felt his pampered life disintegrate as the Japanese overran China in 1938 and the world moved closer to war. Gradually, inexorably, the family was drawn into the maelstrom.
Kwan?s father, a wealthy railway administrator, became active in the resistance against the Japanese. Chiang Kai-Shek?s nationalists and Mao Tse Tung?s emerging communists were united against the invaders, but Kwan?s father knew it wouldn?t always be so. He had to protect his interests, his family, and his future any way he could.
In Beijing, the Kwan household became a gathering place for high-level resistance members. At their summer villa in Baidahe, the family surreptitiously aided the guerrillas in the nearby mountains. In Qingdao, the Kwans lived next door to a Japanese admiral and his wife.
From his treehouse overlooking their garden, little David innocently befriended the Japanese couple while his father, now Commissioner of Finance in the pro-Japanese government, secretly worked for the resistance, even sheltering a wounded U.S. airman. Disclosure would have meant summary execution for the entire household.
After the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan?s surrender, the family?s problems were exacerbated. David?s father, now imprisoned, had to prove he was not a collaborator but rather a leader of the resistance. China moved toward chaos as the nationalists and the communists vied for power. David, at age 12, was sent to relatives in Shanghai before being spirited out of the country, not knowing if he?d ever see his family again.
Things That Must Not Be Forgotten balances the sweet epiphanies of childhood against the grim machinations of war, self-preservation against brutal authority, love of family against love of country. It is a book that will resonate in readers? minds long after they have turned the final, wrenching page.
To grow up in Beijing in the 1930s was to become engulfed in the colossal struggle between ideologies, and between nations, that shaped modern China.
Born into privilege, separated from the filthy chaos of the city by servants and limousines and the stone walls of the Legation Quarter, Michael David Kwan felt his pampered life disintegrate as the Japanese overran China in 1938 and the world moved closer to war. Gradually, inexorably, the family was drawn into the maelstrom.
Kwan?s father, a wealthy railway administrator, became active in the resistance against the Japanese. Chiang Kai-Shek?s nationalists and Mao Tse Tung?s emerging communists were united against the invaders, but Kwan?s father knew it wouldn?t always be so. He had to protect his interests, his family, and his future any way he could.
In Beijing, the Kwan household became a gathering place for high-level resistance members. At their summer villa in Baidahe, the family surreptitiously aided the guerrillas in the nearby mountains. In Qingdao, the Kwans lived next door to a Japanese admiral and his wife.
From his treehouse overlooking their garden, little David innocently befriended the Japanese couple while his father, now Commissioner of Finance in the pro-Japanese government, secretly worked for the resistance, even sheltering a wounded U.S. airman. Disclosure would have meant summary execution for the entire household.
After the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan?s surrender, the family?s problems were exacerbated. David?s father, now imprisoned, had to prove he was not a collaborator but rather a leader of the resistance. China moved toward chaos as the nationalists and the communists vied for power. David, at age 12, was sent to relatives in Shanghai before being spirited out of the country, not knowing if he?d ever see his family again.
Things That Must Not Be Forgotten balances the sweet epiphanies of childhood against the grim machinations of war, self-preservation against brutal authority, love of family against love of country. It is a book that will resonate in readers? minds long after they have turned the final, wrenching page.
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- PublisherFlamingo/Harper Collins
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0732270685
- ISBN 13 9780732270681
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages320
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Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood In Wartime China
Published by
Flamingo/Harper Collins, Sydney
(2002)
ISBN 10: 0732270685
ISBN 13: 9780732270681
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Paperback
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fine. Reprint. 294 pages. Book appears to have hardly been read and is in Fine condition throughout. Seller Inventory # 145108
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Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China
Published by
Flamingo, Australia
(2002)
ISBN 10: 0732270685
ISBN 13: 9780732270681
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: Good. Like Angela's Ashes meets Bhowani Junction meets Empire of the Sun, a never less than engrossing, beautifully written memoir that reads like a novel. Kwan is an awkward, clumsy half-caste boy living in Beijing in the 1930s. Abandoned by his Swiss mother and overwhelmed by his father, Kwan's life is thrown into turmoil when the Japanese invade. After Japan surrenders to the Allies, the Kuomintang and the Communists start their own battle. Kwan's father, active in the resistance during the Japanese occupation, is accused of collaboration with the enemy and arrested. He sets out to write down 'things that must not be forgotton' - the details of his resistance efforts - to save himself from execution. Kwan is spirited away to Hong Kong and is eventually reunited with his family. A brilliant historical drama about a young boy building a relationship with his aloof father, and reconciling his twin heritages of Europe and China. 295 pages. Light tanning to pages. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Autobiography::Memoir; Biography & Autobiography; ISBN: 0732270685. ISBN/EAN: 9780732270681. Inventory No: 251371. Seller Inventory # 251371
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