Not since 'Wild Swans' has Chinese history been so intimately encountered - a renowned historian chronicles a century of change through the contrasting fortunes of four extraordinary sisters.
The Chang sisters were born between 1908 and 1914. They grew up in an aristocratic, highly traditional household - their ancestral home in Hofei was so extensive that the staff included vegetarian cooks as well as normal cooks, seamstresses, washerwomen, nurses and tutors as well as the usual retinue of servants and nannies. But at the same time, the girls were raised progressively by their parents, who gave them a thorough education and sent them to university.
Brought up in an ancient world, faced with an increasingly modern one, the four sisters - who are still alive today - have witnessed the dissolution of old China, whose customs they clearly remember and whose stories they vividly tell, experienced the political hell of the Mao years (one of the sisters married a famous novelist who was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution) and witnessed China's newer transition towards a more capitalist society.
'Four Sisters Of Hofei' is the story of these four exceptional sisters - their traditional childhood, young adulthood in the thirties, their very different marriages and careers - and through them a gripping story of China's turbulent twentieth century.
