Pinawa Public Library
www.pinawapubliclibrary.com
The Biblio File
September 16, 2019
Join us at the library on Sunday, September 29, 2019 at 1:30 p.m. Lindsay and Zaid Aboud, along with their children, will share their experiences launching their Canadian charitable organization – Bridging Villages. They will talk about their time abroad and about the challenges they faced bringing Abel and Malaika home.
Thanks to patron Ed Wuschke for this book review!
“The Unceasing Storm is a memoir by Katherine Luo, who lived in China before and after the Cultural Revolution. She was born in Shanghai, and brought to Hong Kong by her parents at an early age. After several years she returned to Shanghai to get a university education in drama and opera. She lived through the creation of the People’s Republic of China by the Communist revolution. She describes the complete control of every person’s life – needing the permission of the state to move, to marry whom they wished, to get a job. In particular she lived there during the Cultural Revolution – Where the infamous Red Guards accused intellectuals, right wing activists, capitalists, and counter revolutionists of disloyalty to the state – sending them to forced labor camps, where they were tortured, brain-washed and forced to do heavy manual labor. She describes this critical period in China’s history in vivid clarity as one who lived through it.
Later in life she immigrated to Canada, living in Vancouver. She loved her new country and eventually got a job teaching Mandarin at Simon Fraser University. She met and fell in love with a Vancouver man, and married him.
Her vivid description of these troubled times is heart-warming and stirs one to try to understand what went on in China during these times. I was moved by her amazing talent to describe the feelings of herself and her friends.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the events taking place in China in the last half of the 20th century, both from a historical point of view and also by an intense personal narrative of life in those times. I was impressed by her writing skills and enjoyed every page of the book. You will not be disappointed reading this book.”