The House of Yan

&#8220A powerful memoir… A thoughtful, astute narrative that helps Western readers understand the rise of the new China from the ashes of terror.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“[A] comprehensive debut memoir… Yan expertly captures a tumultuous period in this smart, colorful family history.” — Publishers Weekly”A touching, essential account for anyone interested in 20th-century Chinese history and highly recommended for fans of personal family memoir.” — Library Journal (starred review)“Some of the most arresting passages are about the warmth of family life: homely activities like pickling cabbages together or cooking dumplings. You can almost smell the fragrant steam, and what happens when the familiar, the commonplace, is stripped away and existence loses all logic with book burnings, head shavings, ransackings and meaningless cruelties … . For its personal insights and universal warnings about what humans are capable of, both good and bad, Yan’s readable and touching memoir of her family deserves to be told, and she tells it well.” — Washington Post

Yan Lan (born in 1957) was not allowed to enter higher education because her Communist family had been designated as counter-revolutionaries. In 1969, she and her mother were sent to a labor camp in Henan. In 1977, the year after the Cultural Revolution ended, she enrolled at university. Exceptionally motivated, she was awarded grants to study at the most prestigious universities in Europe and the United States. In 1991, she joined the Gide Loyrette Noel legal firm based in Paris and became the first foreign woman to make partner. In 1998, she returned to China to run the firm’s Beijing office. Since 2011, Yan Lan has been managing director of Lazard’s Greater Chin Investment Bank (Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan).