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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Book of the Week

Audiobooks

Factual

Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: The Cooked Seed

Chipo Chung

Jane Marshall

Anchee Min

Book of the Week: The Cooked Seed: Episode 1

Factual: Life Stories

The Cooked Seed

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, The Cooked Seed, Episode 1

Labelled 'a cooked seed', one who has no chance to sprout, Anchee Min wants to leave China

4 Extra Debut. Labelled a 'cooked seed', one who has no chance to sprout, Anchee Min dares to dream of leaving China for America. Read by Chipo Chung.

At seventeen, Anchee Min was spotted by one of Madame Mao's talent scouts and taken to the Shanghai Film Studio as the embodiment of a proletarian heroine. 

But when Madame Mao was denounced, Min was guilty by association and labelled 'a cooked seed' - one who has no chance to sprout.

With no future in her homeland, she dares to dream of living in America. But first she has to work out how to get out of China.

Read by Chipo Chung

Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Anchee Min's account of making a new life in America after emigrating from China

Anchee Min's account of making a new life in America after emigrating from China, abridged by Jane Marshall. Read by Chipo Chung

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