Anchee Min is a Chinese-American painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, photographer, musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

, and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 who lives in San Francisco and Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. Min's memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

, Red Azalea

Red Azalea

Red Azalea is the memoir of Chinese American writer Anchee Min . It was written during the first eight years she spent in the United States, from 1984 to 1992, and tells the story of her life in China.-Story:...

, and her subsequent novels are either semiautobiographical

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 or reflect a particular time in Chinese history with an emphasis on strong female characters, most notably Jiang Qing

Jiang Qing

Jiang Qing was the pseudonym that was used by Chinese leader Mao Zedong's last wife and major Communist Party of China power figure. She went by the stage name Lan Ping during her acting career, and was known by various other names during her life...

, the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

, and Empress Dowager Cixi

Cixi

Cixi may refer to:*Empress Dowager Cixi , empress of the Qing Dynasty*Cixi City, in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China...

, the last ruling empress of China.

Life

Born in Shanghai on January 14, 1957, Min was sent to a labor camp

Labor camp

A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...

 at seventeen where she was discovered by talent scouts. She worked as an actress at the Shanghai Film Studio

Shanghai Film Studio

Shanghai Film Studio is the film division of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation in Shanghai, China. It is responsible for the production of Chinese films and TV programs.-History:...

 and went to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1984 with the help of actress Joan Chen

Joan Chen

Joan Chong Chen is a Chinese American actress, film director, screenwriter and film producer. She became famous in China for her performance in the 1979 film Little Flower and came to international attention for her performance in the 1987 Academy Award-winning film The Last Emperor...

. She is married to author Lloyd Lofthouse.

In May 2011, she was interviewed by Jim Peck

Jim Peck

James Edward "Jim" Peck is an American television and radio personality based in Milwaukee and is perhaps best known for his time as a game show host.-Early career:...

 on Milwaukee Public Television

Milwaukee Public Television

For information on Channels 10 and 36 individually, see WMVS and WMVTMilwaukee Public Television is the branding name for the alliance between two Milwaukee based Public Broadcasting Service public television affiliates: WMVS, Channel 10, and WMVT, Channel 36...

's interview show I Remember.

Fiction

• Katherine
  Katherine (Anchee Min)
  Katherine is the first novel by Anchee Min. It was published by Riverside Books in 1995.-Plot summary:Six years after the death of Mao, the People's Republic of China opens its doors to learn how to integrate into the larger world...
  
  (1995)
• Becoming Madame Mao
  Becoming Madame Mao
  Becoming Madame Mao is a historical novel by Anchee Min detailing the life of Jiang Qing. She became Madame Mao after her marriage to Mao Zedong...
  
  (2001)
• Wild Ginger (2002)
• Empress Orchid
  Empress Orchid
  Empress Orchid is a novel by Anchee Min which was first published in Great Britain in 2004. It is written in first person and is a sympathetic account of the life of Empress Dowager Cixi - from her humble beginnings to her rise as the Empress Dowager.Names within the story are different in...
  
  (2004)
• The Last Empress
  The Last Empress (novel)
  The Last Empress is a historical novel by Anchee Min that provides a sympathetic account of the life of Empress Dowager Cixi , from her rise to power as Empress Tzu-Hsi, until her death at 72 years of age...
  
  (2007)
• Pearl of China (2010)

External links

• http://ancheemin.com