The Bitter Sea: Coming of Age in a China Before Mao

In this exceptional personal memoir, Charles N. Li brings into focus the growth pains of a nation undergoing torturous rebirth and offers an intimate understanding of the intricate, subtle, and yet all-powerful traditions that bind the Chinese family.

Born near the beginning of World War II, Li Na was the youngest son of a wealthy Chinese government official. He saw his father jailed for treason and his family's fortunes dashed when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists came to power in 1945. He watched from his aunt's Shanghai apartment as the Communist army seized the city in 1948. He experienced the heady materialism of the decadent foreign "white ghosts" in British Hong Kong and starved within the harsh confines of a Communist reform school. Over the course of twenty-one tumultuous years, he went from Li Na, the dutiful Chinese son yearning for a stern, manipulative father's love, to Charles, an independent Chinese American seeking no one's approval but his own.

Lyrical and luminous, intense and extraordinary, The Bitter Sea is an unforgettable tale of one young man and his country.

Told with raw honesty, this is a story of surviving history—and surviving family.

• 20th Century Chinese History: Witness the fall of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and the tumultuous rise of the People’s Republic of China through the eyes of a boy who lived through it all.
• Coming of Age in a Revolution: From the privilege of a wealthy official’s mansion to the squalor of a Nanjing slum and the harsh confines of a Communist reform school.
• A Complex Father-Son Relationship: At the heart of the memoir is the author’s struggle with a stern, powerful, and manipulative father whose approval he desperately seeks.
• An Asian American Story: The unforgettable journey from Li Na, a dutiful Chinese son, to Charles, an independent young man forging a new identity far from home.