The River Drowns the Able Swimmer

From the end of the nineteenth century through the Cultural Revolution and into the present, this epic and intimate memoir follows three generations of convention-breaking women as they define themselves against a backdrop of China’s turbulent history

The River Drowns the Able Swimmer opens with Xujun Eberlein’s grandmother, born to a destitute peasant family on the precipice of a new era, of which her partially bound feet become a symbol. Decades later, a young woman, who will become Xujun’...