Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Author/Guide: Madeleine Thien

Why a Booktrail?

1991 and back: A woman who fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests tells her story..

ISBN: 978-1783782666
Genre: Fiction

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What you need to know before your trail

In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. Her name is Ai-Ming.

As her relationship with Marie deepens, Ai-Ming tells the story of her family in revolutionary China, from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman Mao’s ascent to the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1960s and the events leading to the Beijing demonstrations of 1989. It is a history of revolutionary idealism, music, and silence, in which three musicians, the shy and brilliant composer Sparrow, the violin prodigy Zhuli, and the enigmatic pianist Kai struggle during China’s relentless Cultural Revolution to remain loyal to one another and to the music they have devoted their lives to. Forced to re-imagine their artistic and private selves, their fates reverberate through the years, with deep and lasting consequences for Ai-Ming – and for Marie.

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Travel Guide

China through the ages

The story in this novel spans fifty years of China’s history.

China’s history is wide and vast and focusing on one family and realises how each political change, each social development can impact on the ordinary family

Since the family here are musicians, the novel is a look at the Maoist Cultural Revolution and how this has changed and impacted on families and musicians across the country. China has not tolerated such freedoms and such creativity during its darkest moments.

A family like many others whose loves and ambitions are thwarted at every turn. There are many real life events which are woven into the narrative to highlight the human side of the Chinese revolution.A country may go through dark periods and huge upheavals but that even during these times, there are people willing to make a difference and to risk everything, including their own lives to try and make their country a better one.