Some of Us is a collection of memoirs by nine Chinese women who grew up during the Mao era and now live in the United States. Each of the chapters is crafted by a writer who reflects back to that time in a more nuanced manner than has been possible for Western observers. The authors attend to gender in a way that male writers have barely noticed; they also reflect on their lives in the United States.

The issues explored here are as varied as these womens lives: The burgeoning rebellion of a young girl in northeast China. A girls struggles to obtain for herself the education her parents inspired her to attain. An exploration of gender and identity as experienced by two sisters.

Some of Us offers insight into a place and time when life was much more complex than Westerners have allowed. These eloquent writings shatter our stereotypes of persecution, repression, victims, and victimizers in Maoist China.

Xueping Zhong is an associate professor of literature at Tufts University. She is the author of Masculinity Besieged?: Issues of Modernity and Male Subjectivity in Late Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature. Wang Zheng is an associate professor of womens studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories. Bai Di is an assistant professor of Chinese at Iowa State University.

"This collection makes a fascinating read. Each of the nine memoirs is crafted with skill and honesty."Dorothy Ko, professor of history, Barnard College