RED AZALEA by Anchee Min (Berkley:...

RED AZALEA by Anchee Min (Berkley: $6.99; 336 pp.). Min was “raised on the teachings of Mao.” Eager to prove her devotion to the Chairman, she went to work on a communal farm where the soil was so saline the workers couldn’t even grow enough to feed themselves. The pointless labor led Min to begin questioning her Maoist credo. What remained of her faith was shattered when she went to Beijing to audition for Red Azalea, the title role in one Madame Mao’s agitprop operas. In this moving study of disillusionment, Min writes without personal rancor, but with anger at ill-conceived enterprises and doctrinal disputes that have wasted so many lives in modern China.