Through the story of two families, Barbara Demick reveals how children forcibly taken from their parents were then put forward for ‘rescue’ in the west
Towards the end of the 1990s, the American journalist Barbara Demick began visiting a selection of ordinary citizens living in, and in some cases trying to escape from, North Korea. Hers was a necessarily low-key presence in Pyongyang, a city that didn’t look kindly upon outsiders, and this helped her to gain the confidences of the people she interviewed with a subtlety that writers of reportage don’t always achieve. The resulting book, Nothing to Envy, published in 2009, was remarkable for its intimacy and insight, and is among the finest accounts of life under a dictatorship. It won the Samuel Johnson prize, sold 200,000 copies, and cemented Demick’s standing as one of the finest nonfiction writers of her generation.
In her new book, the 66-year-old adopts a similarly understated approach to document the story of China’s decades-long one-child policy, implemented in 1979 – when China was the world’s most populous country – and only rescinded in 2016.
“If you were visibly pregnant without a permit,” she writes, “you could be hog-tied and hauled away for a forced abortion. Then they sent you a bill for the favour.”
Demick chooses to approach what is a vast and complicated subject through the prism of just two families: the Chinese parents whose daughter was abducted, and the American couple who adopted her.
In 2000, a Chinese woman, who already had two children, gave birth to twin daughters. Twins in her village were not common, and the country’s one-child policy encouraged neighbours to turn informants. While the family tried to conceal them, it wasn’t long before the authorities were alerted, and operatives sent to remove them.
One twin, Shuangjie, evaded capture, but the other ended up in an orphanage. Two years later, a couple from Texas who had not unreasonably believed the orphanage’s propaganda – that these children had been cruelly abandoned, and adopting them was a virtuous act – came to “rescue” her. The birth family of Esther, as her adoptive parents named her, had no recourse available to them, and simply had to get on with their lives with one fewer child.
As a foreign correspondent in Beijing, Demick had covered such stories regularly. By the turn of the 21st century, nearly 100,000 babies had been sent out of China, such was the demand, Demick writes, for its “unwanted daughters” whose “shiny black pigtails” made them media darlings. American families were tempted by the idea of a multi-ethnic family, often inspired by celebrities such as Madonna and Angelina Jolie, “who added a touch of glamour to international adoption”. Crucially, they were also willing to pay top price for the privilege, up to $25,000.
This particular tale stood out because it revolved around twins. Identical twins have long held a fascination, all the more so when separated and raised differently. What, Demick wondered, were the remaining similarities between Shuangjie and Esther, and how would they differ?
By the 21st century, nearly 100,000 babies had been sent out of China, such was the demand
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove places this gripping narrative within its wider context, replete with attendant complications and horrors. When Chinese mothers were found to be pregnant a second time, doctors would often induce labour, then kill the baby with an injection of formaldehyde into the cranium before the feet emerged.
“If you kill a baby while it’s still partly in the womb, it’s considered an abortion. If you do it after birth, it’s murder,” she hears. Of those that lived but were sent to orphanages, the parents were powerless to intervene. If they tried, they were dealt with through government-sanctioned violence. “How did people become so cruel?” Demick wonders.
Gradually and sensitively, the author gets in touch with both families. She facilitates contact between them, and introduces the possibility of a meeting in person. This is far from straightforward. When Esther, by now a teenager who considers herself a proud American, learns the truth of her adoption, she worriedly asks her mother: “Does this mean I will have to go back to China?”
We’ve grown used to emotional stories of families torn apart for all sorts of reasons, then brought back together for a tearful reunion. Demick does not take a sensationalist approach. Aware this is achingly difficult terrain to navigate, she handles it with enormous compassion, allowing the narrative to develop at its own slow pace – over many years – even though the reader desperately wants to rush forward, as if it were a thriller. There were times when I almost forgot to breathe.
Late in the book, there’s a group photograph of the many people the author has collaborated with on this journey. It takes a while to notice that Demick herself is in the frame, tucked away in a far corner, unobtrusive despite her crucial role. It is this unshowy, subtle approach that makes her book the very best kind of nonfiction, and Demick its peerless practitioner.
This story of state-sponsored child abduction, human trafficking and the limits of family ties “is something the Chinese will be reckoning with for decades to come”, she writes. And her account of it is the most devastating indictment.
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick is published by Granta (£20). Order from observershop.co.uk to receive a special 20% launch offer (ends 11 June). Delivery charges may apply
Photograph by Yuan Wang
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