Praise for Ox Horn Bend
Against the backdrop of momentous events in world history, Ox Horn Bend is a case study in how international politics has affected the lives of seemingly ordinary (but actually quite extraordinary) individuals. An exquisitely-written account of Roy Cheng Tsung’s search for answers about his father’s past, it reads like a detective story in which the reader learns much about China and its tumultuous relations with the West.
Ron Purver, Ottawa, Ontario
About Ox Horn Bend
“I froze momentarily and stared at the sky-high buildings and fast-moving thoroughfare of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. I had just escaped from two decades of isolation behind the Bamboo Curtain, and I felt like a bumpkin, afraid to cross Queen’s Road, unable to open the door of a taxi, and dazzled by the neon lights, shiny limos and zooming Jaguars.”
Roy Cheng Tsung, Ox Horn Bend
Roy Cheng Tsung, a young American-born Chinese, escapes from Communist China with his mother in 1974 after 20 years of isolation during the Cold War and searches for the reason his late father had made it virtually impossible for him to reclaim his American citizenship. Forty-five years later he recounts that story for his daughters “who grew up in sunny California and had no clue about what it was like to live in a totalitarian country and the sacrifices that came with our freedom.”
About the Author
The son of a Chinese Nationalist diplomat, Roy Cheng Tsung was born in New York City. After the downfall of the Nationalist regime in 1949, his father resigned from the Consular service and moved his family to Beijing at the height of the Cold War, hoping to help build New China. In 1974, Roy and his mother escaped to British Hong Kong and returned to the U.S., where he worked for Stanford University and Stanford Medical Center for thirty years before retiring in 2009. The author of Beyond Lowu Bridge (Passager Books, 2014) and Ox Horn Bend (Passager Books, 2020), Tsung is married with two daughters and son-in-law, and lives in San Francisco Bay Area with his wife. He is working on a third book about his mother, a remarkable woman of strength who was born on a tiny peaceful island in Southern China, traveled the world as the wife of a diplomat for twenty years, and endured the harsh conditions of Northern China for another twenty years.
Readings
We celebrated the release of Ox Horn Bend over Zoom. Readings by Roy and his daughters, and Q&A with the author.
For Booksellers & Media
Memoir | Soft cover | 216 pages | $20
See also Beyond Lowu Bridge, this title’s companion story.