Daughters of the Bamboo Grove bookcover

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove

From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins

This title will be released on

calendar iconMay 20, 2025

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Description

The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy, one of today’s leading reporters

On a warm day in September 2000, a woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut behind her brother’s home in China’s Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions to her family but also not her first children. Living under the shadow of China’s notorious one-child policy, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn’t imagine she could be sent as far as the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world.

Following stories she wrote as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick embarks on a journey that encompasses the origins, shocking cruelty, and long-term impact of China’s one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation. Today, Esther—formerly Fangfang—lives in Texas, and Demick brings to vivid life the Christian family that felt called to adopt her, unaware that she had been kidnapped. Through Demick’s indefatigable reporting, will the long-lost sisters finally reunite—and will they feel whole again?

A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work.

Product Details

PublisherRandom House
Publish DateMay 20, 2025
Pages352
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconHardback
EAN/UPC9780593132746
Dimensions9.3 X 6.1 X 0.9 inches | 1.2 pounds

About the Author

Barbara Demick is the author of Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town, named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times; Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize in the United Kingdom; and Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She is a former foreign correspondent who covered Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, most recently as China bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. She has been a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Public Library, and Princeton University.

Reviews

“Barbara Demick gets into the heads and the hearts of the people she profiles so adeptly that one sometimes forgets it is nonfiction one is reading. In Daughters of the Bamboo Grove, she turns the seemingly-prosaic human dramas of our societies into a cinematic and heart-rending epic tale with consequences that cross continents. In her work, every individual’s story gets their due - its beauty, dignity, and wonder made evident through her writing.”—Emily Feng, author of Let Only Red Flowers Bloom

“This powerful book documents the heart-wrenching impact of China’s Family Planning policy, particularly the forced separations that fueled international adoptions. Focusing on the lives of twins cruelly separated in infancy—one remaining in China and the other raised overseas by adoptive parents—this immensely empathetic, moving, and thought-provoking narrative offers readers an extraordinary window into the complex dilemmas of international adoption.”—Zhuqing Li, author of Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden

“A bittersweet but engrossing narrative of how one family was compelled by Beijing’s ‘one-child policy’ to give an ‘unauthorized’ child up for adoption to American parents.”—Orville Schell, co-author of Wealth and Power

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