[]
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove
Published 3 June 2025
ISBN 9781923058521
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 352pp
AU Price $36.99
NZ Price $45.00
Categories:

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove

From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
3 June 2025
EBook
3 June 2025
Buy from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Your Bookstore Abbeys Boomerang Collins Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Mighty Ape

'Excellent…entrancing and disturbing.’ The New York Times

One of the world's best investigative journalists tells the true story of Chinese twins forcibly separated as babies through adoption trafficking, raised on opposite sides of the globe and only reunited as teens.

In 2000, a Chinese woman gave birth to twins in a bamboo grove, trying to avoid detection by the government because she already had two daughters. Two years later, an American couple travelled to Shaoyang to adopt a Chinese toddler they thought had been abandoned.

Their understanding had been that China's brutal one-child policy was leading to hundreds of abandoned girls, desperate for the care of adopted parents. What they didn't know - and what award-winning journalist Barbara Demick uncovered in 2007, while working as a correspondent in Beijing - was that their daughter had been snatched from her beloved family and her identical twin.

Under China's one-child policy hundreds of poor Chinese were giving up their children due to soaring fines and threats of violence. More sinister still, international demand for adoptees was sky-rocketing, and local officials were forcibly seizing children and trafficking them to orphanages, who were selling them abroad.

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove tells the gripping story of separated twins, their respective fates in China and the USA, and Barbara Demick's role in reuniting them against huge odds. Painting a rich portrait of China's history and culture, it asks questions about the roots, impact and consequences of China's one-child policy, the ethics of international adoption, and, ultimately, the assumptions and narratives we hold about the quality of lives lived in the East and the West.

‘There were times when I almost forgot to breathe.…the very best kind of nonfiction.’ Observer

‘A thrilling narrative.’ LA Review of Books

'[Demick] has written with impeccable empathy for everyone involved, Chinese and western.’ The Times

‘Compelling…Meticulously researched and vividly recounted.’ Times Literary Supplement
Published 3 June 2025
ISBN 9781923058521
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 352pp
AU Price $36.99
NZ Price $45.00
Categories:

Praise for Daughters of the Bamboo Grove

‘One of the most heart-breaking and essential piece of non-fiction I have ever read.’

Pandora Sykes

‘Compelling [and] gripping.’

Literary Review

‘Brilliantly written with passion and forensic detail, the book reads like a fast-paced whodunit, with the crime committed against a nation, a people, and girls everywhere.’

Mei Fong, author of One Child

‘Sensitive [and] poignant…Demick is an enchanting storyteller, and the book offers a magisterial overview of China’s recent history…Demick’s research is an exceptional achievement of journalistic reporting…She dives deep into the emotional lives of her subject and the result is a nuanced and humane portrait for all involved.’

Irish Independent

‘Solid reportage and a deep knowledge of China inform this welcome study of a state-imposed social experiment gone awry.’

Kirkus Reviews

’In this appalling exposé, longtime China correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and investigative journalist Demick . . . tells [vulnerable families’] stories with amazing levels of detail, nuance, empathy, and grace. She includes meticulous documentation and offers unique insights into life in rural China from the Maoist regime to the present day.’

Booklist

‘A family torn apart struggles to heal itself in this immersive, painterly exposé...The Zeng family’s efforts to reconnect years later frame Demick’s investigation into how China’s ‘one child policy’ dovetailed with an ‘insatiable demand’ for international adoptees in America...Demick relays this nightmarish tale in elegant, empathetic prose. It’s a tour de force’

Publishers Weekly

‘Does what the best stories do: humanises a big issue…It’s personal and moving, but also thoroughly researched, strengthened with compelling and confronting statistics and anecdotes…Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is a testament to dogged reporting. Demick’s skills as a researcher, interviewer – and effectively, a detective – imbue the book with substance and credibility…Her descriptions of the twin sisters, Shuangjie and Esther, are perceptive and gentle. Restraint is a powerful writing tool and Demick uses it here to great effect.’

The Conversation

About the author

Barbara Demick

Barbara Demick won the Samuel Johnson Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award with Nothing to Envy, her seminal book on North Korea. Besieged, her account of the war in Sarajevo, was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize. Demick's Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town was named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. Demick is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. She lives in New York.
portrait photo of Barbara Demick

Also by Barbara Demick

Eat the Buddha
See all

Rights for Daughters of the Bamboo Grove

Rights held: ANZ