Wives of the east wind - Liu Hong

Spanning four decades of Chinese history, Wives of the East Wind is an epic tale of friendships, love, and idealism betrayed.

Two couples - Wenya and Zhiying, Zhenzhen and Lao Gao - meet, marry and become inseparable just as China is shaking off the memory of war, and the brightest of its youth are pledging themselves to building a vibrant new future.
Yet for all that their lives embody the ideals of the young republic, they are spared none of the suffering and hardship that are to follow, through years of famine and the terror of the Cultural Revolution.
It is the two women who form the most powerful bond, and Wenya's loyalty and Zhenzhen's spirit sustain them both through their darkest hours. And as a new, more affluent China dawns and the struggle for survival gives way to an equally fierce battle to protect the values closest to their hearts, Zhenzhen teaches Wenya an unforgettable lesson about courage.

Liu Hong was born in Manchuria, on China's North-Korean border,
in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. She studied English language and literature before moving to Beijing where she worked as a translator for Channel Four and other western TV companies. In 1989 she came to England on an academic scholarship and studied first in Oxford and then in London, where she gained an MA in social anthropology. One of the first mainland Chinese authors writing fiction in English in the UK she has published four novels: STARTLING MOON, THE MAGPIE BRIDGE, THE TOUCH and WIVES OF THE EAST WIND.
She is also the translator of the Chinese novel THE CONCUBINE OF SHANGHAI, by Hong Ying. She lives in the West of England.

'a fine combination of delicacy and steeliness...the yin and yang of marriage, Weyna's barbed relationship with her widowed mother, loyalty misplaced and rediscovered-makes for a warm and understated novel'
Guardian

'novels set in post-revolutionary China , with the promise of stoicism in the face of political oppression, have an understandable appeal'.
Telegraph

'epic novel...think fictional Wild Swans'
Woman and Home