From the end of the nineteenth century through the Cultural Revolution and into the present, this epic and intimate memoir follows three generations of convention-breaking women as they define themselves against a backdrop of China’s turbulent historyThe River Drowns the Able Swimmer opens with Xujun Eberlein’s grandmother, born to a destitute peasant family on the precipice of a new era, of which her partially bound feet become a symbol. Decades later, a ...