Ying Qian's A China Story: Growing Up in Mao's Cultural Revolution is a page-turner that I could not put down. —Ellen LaFleche, North Street Book Prize Judge In her award-winning memoir, Ying Qian gives a first-hand account of Mao's deadly Cultural Revolution and shares her emotional journey of uncovering the truth of the murder of her father, a renowned nuclear weapons expert, by the Chinese military during that period. On a summer day in 2010, Ying Qian returns to Beijing from America to visit her family and receives information on how her father was killed during the Cultural Revolution 40 years earlier. The revelation forces her to walk down memory lane to the darkest period in recent Chinese history and compels her to search for information surrounding her father's death. Through the process, she discovers truths that were there all along. A China Story received the Bronze Award for the Memoir and Biography category in the 2026 Feathered Quill Book Awards competition, the Category Winner Award for the History and Culture category in the 2025 Memoir Prize for Books competition, and the Honorable Mention Award for the Creative Nonfiction category in the 2020 North Street Book Prize competition (Advance Reader Copy). The book was also a quarterfinalist in the memoir and autobiography category of the 2019 BookLife Prize competition (manuscript) and received a 5-star review from Readers' Favorite Book Reviews and Contest. "Ying Qian's A China Story: Growing Up in Mao's Cultural Revolution is a page-turner that I could not put down. The flawless writing, coupled with the compelling story of oppression under Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution in China, kept me awake for several nights because I had to read one more page, and then another. The juxtaposition of the author's beautiful descriptions of Chinese flowers, trees, and landscapes with the horrors of mass murder and torture, mysterious disappearances, and neighbors turning in neighbors for slight or suspected offenses, makes this entry a tour de force." —Ellen LaFleche, North Street Book Prize Judge " A China Story is about an honest man's struggle to maintain his honesty, dignity, and integrity. It is also a poignant story of a woman's journey to find out the truth surrounding her father's death and how speaking out against a dictatorship cost him his life. ... This is one of the finest memoirs I have read and the author is very honest while sharing her story." —Mamta Madhavan, Readers' Favorite "Qian excels at viscerally recreating Mao's China as filtered through her childhood perceptions, while supplying readers with edifying historical context. ... Qian's memoir offers a highly effective framing device, which also allows the work to stand apart from other titles that unfold during the years of the Cultural Revolution. Qian's story—of her family, her father, and her own journey from Beijing to the United States and back—is a unique and memorable one." —BookLife Prize "A woman takes us back through time in her riveting story about growing up in Mao's Communist China. The after effects and revelation of what really happened to her father are astounding. This story is powerful and worth reading. Honest and eye-opening." —San Francisco Book Review "A beautifully and bravely written masterpiece, survivor Ying Qian's historical account of growing up during the Mao mandated Cultural Revolution keeps readers riveted as it tugs at the heartstrings and exposes unspeakable horrors that have been swept under the rug for far too long." —Christine Pingleton Writer, Editor, Founder of Word Works Editorial Service An outstanding read that is inspiring, honest, and accurate. —Margie Peterson, Reedsy Discovery