*Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan

Dragonfly Eyes is a slowly-unfolding, beautiful picture of family love and loyalty during the stressful days of China’s Cultural Revolution.

*Dragonfly Eyes by Cao Wenxuan, translated by Helen Wang. Candlewick, 2022, 375 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 12-up

A Charmed Life in Shanghai

Ever since she was a little girl, Ah Mei turned heads, and no wonder. Though Shanghai born and bred, she stood apart. In looks, temperament, and emotional attachment she resembled her grandmother, Nainai, who spoke like a Shanghai native—”but when she laughed [Nainai] was French.” Nainai’s given name was Océane; she had eyes as blue as the sea and hair the color of sand. Long ago she had enchanted the Chinese sailor Du Meixi, who courted and won her in the port city of Marseilles.

The sailor was of a very rich family, as it happened, and when the two married he settled down to manage his father’s silk export business in Lyons. When war broke out, beginning with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, Du Meixi and Océane made the difficult decision to move back to China in order to take over the business from his ailing father. The war couldn’t last forever, they reasoned, and for years life was stable in the Blue House where their children grew up and their grandchildren arrived. But they weren’t expecting the communist takeover that would change everything.

The Cultural Wreckage of a “Cultural Revolution”

Du Meixi (whom Ah Mei knows as Yeye) gives up ownership of his silk factory and works there as a common laborer. Nainai tries to maintain their comfortable homelife by frequent visits to the pawnshop. But no hardship can make her part with the precious pair of “dragonfly eyes,” precious glass beads given to her by her father-in-law. She and Ah Mei make joy where they can, including the joy of music from the little girl’s special talent for piano. But a totalitarian government squeezes tighter as Ah Mei grew older, until maintaining a stable home life seems impossible.

This story unfolds slowly, with lyrical passages and indelible details showing how the beauty of human love is threatened, if not wrecked, by radical politics. Mao’s Cultural Revolution is responsible for well over a million deaths throughout China, much of it due to the gangs of Red Brigade youth who looted and murdered unrestrained. No violent deaths are pictured here; the author focuses on small things, such as the lengths Yeye and Ah Mei go just to buy Nainai a small bottle of perfume. Or the fate of a beloved apricot tree. Human kindness redeems some of the pain. When tempted to despair, Nainai reflects, “How could she hate the world when there were such good people in it?”

Dragonfly Eyes is better suited to teens and grownups then the average middle-grade reader, who may get impatient with the slow pace. The one quibble I have is Nainai’s apparent suicide at the end (not too much of a spoiler alert, since we know from the first chapter that she dies). Though she believe in God, she’s not a churchgoer and doesn’t often pray, so we can understand how the constant striving against forces she can’t control has worn her down. Aside from that, the story is beautiful and moving and even (overused term) heartbreaking.

Overall Rating: 4.5

• Worldview/moral value: 4
• Artistic/literary value: 5

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Also at Redeemed Reader:

Review: Bronze and Sunflower, by the same author, is also set during the Cultural Revolution, but for younger readers. Well worth a look.

Resource: See our China-themed booklist!

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