Used book – Falling Leaves, Adeline Yen Mah, Eugene Illouz, Frederic

Shanghai, in the 1930s, was still a prosperous and bustling colonial city. It was there that Mr. and Mrs. Yen, fleeing the advancing Japanese troops, chose to settle with their four children. It was there that the family business took off, making Mr. Yen one of China's wealthiest industrialists. Suddenly, in 1937, Mrs. Yen died a few days after giving birth to a baby girl: Adeline. Her father's grief was short-lived: he remarried a seductive Franco-Chinese woman named Niang, a frivolous and vain woman, eager for social events, who made no secret of her contempt for the children from his first marriage. But it was Adeline, considered responsible for her mother's death, for whom Niang reserved the full force of her cruelty. Adeline became the scapegoat for the entire family. In 1947, fearing the communist threat, the Yen family went into exile in Hong Kong. Adeline was not part of the journey. Placed in an orphanage, she was deprived of visitors and mail. Yet, it was in this prison that she would discover the key to her existence: books... "Fallen Leaves," this Asian "Viper in the Fist," has been translated into ten countries and sold over a million copies.