The Woman Who Could Not Forget

Iris Chang Before and Beyond The Rape of Nanking

By: Ying-Ying Chang

Narrated by: Emily Zeller

A moving and illuminating memoir about the life of world-famous author and historian Iris ChangIris Chang's best-selling book, The Rape of Nanking, forever changed the way we view the Second World War in Asia. It all began with a photo of a river choked with the bodies of hundreds of Chinese civilians that shock Iris to her core. Who were these people? Why had this happened and how could their story have been lost to history? She could not shake that image from her head. She could not forget what she had seen.

A few short years later, Chang revealed this "second Holocaust" to the world. The Japanese atrocities against the people of Nanking were so extreme that Nazi officers based in China actually petitioned Hitler to ask the Japanese government to stop the massacre. But who was this woman that single-handedly swept away years of silence, secrecy and shame?

Her mother, Ying-Ying, provides an enlightened and nuanced look at her daughter, from Iris's home-made childhood newspaper, to her early years as a journalist and later, as a promising young historian, her struggles with her son's autism and her tragic suicide. The Woman Who Could Not Forget cements Iris's legacy as one of the most extraordinary minds of her generation and reveals the depth and beauty of the bond between a mother and daughter.

The Woman Who Could Not Forget won 2012 Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) Awards for Literature in Adult Non-Fiction category.

©2011 Ying-Ying Chang (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Great Respect

I already had great respect for Iris Chang for her own book now I have even more for this beautiful person.

compelling!

The story of Iris Chang's life and death is something that I will carry with me until my last day.

THE CELABRATION OF A LIFE

The waste of human life value:
I have lost so many who walk off a pier only to find they needed more of it to finish what they had to leave the world. Death where is your victory in all of this. Why not give me some of your pain to carry Iris? I would have been a willing recipient. I will never be where you have been , although I may meet you when my journey ends. Only your journey has left me keenly aware of the dangers you faced with such courage. So much you have taken with you. Do we pick up the amulet and carry on? You left us too soon and I would want to follow you through the breach into battle by the inspiration you kindle. Will you offer me a hint as to where you were headed so I can defy the ignorance of the negative evil that abounds in this world. We as a nation defeated a fanaticism and sunk the chrysanthemum on many occasions . They paid a price at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We all, in retrospect lost Iris, and now we have lost your precious life to give us cause to ask for justice. Thank you Iris.

Wolfgang M. Schwartzenweintraub
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University Thesis Changed Understanding of WWII

This is a great, insightful view into the mind and life of a remarkable young student who stumbled onto the thesis most university students only dream of and create a New York Times Best Seller than changed the world's understanding of the horrors of World War II before taking her own life in the aftermath of the incredible controversy and horrific denials resulting from her extraordinary academic research.

She wrote a work that shook the nation of Japan and the top of which is still considered taboo to mention in Japan or around Japanese. While all the world has been deeply aware of the horrors of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union's KGB, the Khmer Rouge, a plethora of South and Central American dictators, without the gift of Iris Chang's admittedly nauseating description of torture so remarkable horrible that it makes uncomfortable reading, the world would have gone blissfully on oblivious to one of the world's more horrid historical elements.

We are all indebted to her. And she and her family paid a dear price for the gem she left humanity. This story tells why and how she endeavored to achieve the dream of so many academicians and authors - to tell a powerful, riveting story that no one could put down.

Great work. Great woman.

Inspiring!

I learned lot as a father of two abc girls and these knowledges will be injected into them while being raised up.

An error in buying and it lived up to that.

What did you like best about The Woman Who Could Not Forget? What did you like least?

I liked the celebration of their ancestory and her success, a few of the anecdotes about her childhood. She was hard working and rewarded for that. Too much suffering and angst is
what I didn't like. It would be interesting if she could have written her own life story.Very depressing for me.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

There was an end?

What didn’t you like about Emily Zeller’s performance?

The voice changes.

Was The Woman Who Could Not Forget worth the listening time?

No, it went on and on about her unhappinesses.