蜜芽传媒

Barbara Demick's latest book reveals the far reaching consequences of China's one child policy for a family living in rural China and in particular their twin girls as the two approach their second birthday in 2001. Debora Weston reads.

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is the new book by the award-winning journalist Barbara Demick. Here she tells the extraordinary story of separated twins, their lives in China and the USA, and her own role in reuniting them.

In 2000, a Chinese woman gave birth to twin girls in a hideaway in a remote Chinese village to avoid coming to the notice of the officials who enforced the one child policy. She and her husband already had two daughters and knew there would be hefty fines to pay for the two new additions to their family, but they could not have imagined what would happen next.

Barbara Demick is the author of Eating the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town, and the multi-award winning Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. It was during her time working as the Los Angeles Times Bureau Chief in China that she uncovered the tale of the separated twins. In Daughters of the Bamboo Grove not only does she reveal the story of the what happened to the girls, she also explores the heart-breaking consequences of China's one-child policy and the country's international adoption programme.

Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard