"Eileen Chang is a vital force, transforming the desolation of the everday into strong prose that, though stark, achieves the splendor, the permanence, of art. Splendour and desolation: the words are Chang's drawn from her work and descriptive of her experience. . . . A haunting tale. "The Rice Sprout Song reads less as an indictment of a specific regime than as a study of the effects of political power on ordinary people."--"Boston Book Review