Wei Wei Shemilt

The Girl with Complicated Thoughts Wei Wei Shemilt

40 years ago, China was plunged into dark chaos. The 'Cultural Revolution' was synonymous with torture and death, a decade of misery for all. 11-year-old Jiangwei watched in horror the tragedies unfold around her. She began looking after her younger sister and working in the fields. As 'bourgeois intellectuals', her parents were put into a concentration camp and then the family was banished to a remote flood-ridden area. At the age of 15, she found extraordinary courage to escape. She became a fitter of farm machinery back in Beijing. With only 5 years of education behind her, she secretly taught herself middle school subjects including English. After 7 long years she passed the university entrance exams which were held for the first time in eleven years and was enrolled in Peking University. However the country was still under a totalitarian regime. When Jiangwei met Robert, an English journalist from The Times, their courtship could result in her being sent to a labour camp...