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Interviews with well-known authors from Britain and around the world, looking at what drives their work and concentrating on their literary life story.

Talking Books: Jung Chang

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Jung Chang, Credit: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images

Jung Chang

BBC World Service - Talking Books, Jung Chang

The author on the imperial concubine, Cixi, who ruled China for half a century

Razia Iqbal talks to Jung Chang who, she says, went from concubine to laying the foundations of modern China

Jung Chang's book Wild Swans catapulted her onto the international stage, a harrowing story of her own family focusing on three generations of women. 

The Chinese author then tackled a mammoth task of rethinking what we should think about Chairman Mao in her book Mao: The Unknown Story and has now written a biography of the Empress Dowager Cixi, who ruled China from 1860 to her death in 1908. 

In front of an audience on the main stage at Hay Festival she talks to Razia Iqbal about this woman who, she says, went from concubine to laying the foundations of modern China.

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