Literary Anecdote of the Day: Anchee Min

Novelist Anchee Min, who writes in English, didn't learn the language until she was 27. She grew up in China and her father was an astronomy professor. He was fired after he taught his class about sun spots. This was considered provocative because the sun came to be a symbol of Chairman Mao, and any discussion of sun spots was also a discussion of blemishes on the visage of the Chinese leader, an implicit criticism of Communism.

Via The Writer's Almanac. See also the New York Times, June 2000.