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Last Boat Out of Shanghai is based on the dramatic, real-life stories of a generation caught up in the mass rush out of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist Revolution, with startling parallels to the struggles faced by emigrants today.
Shanghai has historically been China's jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao's proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, the last generation to fully recall one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century have opened their story to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia. From these moving accounts, she weaves the story of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S.
Helen Zia is a journalist and activist for Asian American and LGBTQ rights. In 2000, her first book was published: Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. She also authored the story of Wen Ho Lee in My Country Versus Me, about the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused of being a spy for China in the "worst case since the Rosenbergs." She was Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and a founding board co-chair of the Women's Media Center.
*Dress code for the RAS library is business casual; please no shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, jeans with holes, etc.
Upcoming book club events:
Non-Fiction:
April 8th: Yukio Mishima (Critical Lives) by Damian Flanagan
May 6th: From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia by Pankaj Mishra
June 3rd: Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age by Stephen R. Platt
Fiction:
April 22nd: Red Poppies by Alai
May 20th: I Did Not Kill My Husband by Liu Zhenyun
June 17th: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Speakers
Helen Zia
https://helenzia.com/In 2000, her first book was published: Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. She also authored the story of Wen Ho Lee in My Country Versus Me, about the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused of being a spy for China in the “worst case since the Rosenbergs.” She was Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and a founding board co-chair of the Women’s Media Center. She has been active in many non-profit organizations, including Equality Now, AAJA, and KQED. Her ground-breaking articles, essays and reviews have appeared in many publications, books and anthologies, receiving numerous awards.
The daughter of immigrants from China, Helen has been outspoken on issues ranging from human rights and peace to women’s rights and countering hate violence and homophobia. She is featured in the Academy Award nominated documentary, Who Killed Vincent Chin? and was profiled in Bill Moyers’ PBS series, Becoming American: The Chinese Experience. In 2008 Helen was a Torchbearer in San Francisco for the Beijing Olympics amid great controversy; in 2010, she was a witness in the federal marriage equality case decided by the US Supreme Court.
Helen received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Law School of the City University of New York for bringing important matters of law and civil rights into public view. She is a Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of Princeton University’s first coeducational class. She attended medical school but quit after completing two years, then went to work as a construction laborer, an autoworker, and a community organizer, after which she discovered her life’s work as a writer.
Helen’s latest book is Last Boat out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese who Fled Mao’s Revolution. It launches on January 22, 2019 and traces the lives of emigrants and refugees from another cataclysmic time in history that has striking parallels to the difficulties facing migrants today.