Anchee Min

Anchee Min, a native of Shanghai, is the author of two memoirs and six historical novels, which emphasize strong female characters such as Jiang Qing, the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong. At age 17, Min was sent to a collective farm, where she was discovered by talent scouts and became an actress. After the collapse of the Mao regime, Min fled to the United States in 1984 and subsequently graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1985, she won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for her memoir, Red Azalea. Updated July 2015