Ma Jian's stuff about China if you want the truth, fast, about the biggest country in the world. Sorry Corygal but if you want to learn the truth fast, from the perspective of an elite male intellectual, the sort who has been the elite of the patriarchal elite in one of the most unequal patriarchal cultures in the world for thousands of years. Do you know that when he is interviewed he has his English partner translate for him, though his English is fluent enough to be able to respond very quickly without translation if for instance it is suggested he is being rather arrogant assuming only he as an elite intellectual can speak for the people, men and women, of China, fair enough he wants a native English speaker to translate for him but the way he does it is actually the typical behaviour of a Chinese intellectual male through the centuries, and that is also manifested in his books. I am not saying don't read his books, just be aware of his, and Gao Xinjiang's (the Nobel prize winner) perspective, and their particular brand of "look at moi" misogyny, and don't get caught up at looking at some Chinese authors through western rose tinted glasses because of their western crowd pleasing politics.
We do need our daughters to learn about the rest of the world but also to question the perspective, both ours and others.
If you want woman's perspectives on China, Eileen Chang (Ziang Ailing, though she was christened with a western name). Stories written during the war when all the male intellectuals left Shanghai and she and a group of women were able to write their own stories for an audience of women in a time of great trauma, about war, modernity and their experience of traditional patriarchy. She is regarded as one of the greatest authors by the Chinese diaspora and wrote Lust Caution, which Ang Lee filmed. Some of her stories are deeply moving accounts of a woman's experience in traditional China "The Golden Cangue". www.adgo.com.hk/eileen/books/eng/12/01.html
Laura Esquivel - Like Water for Chocolate. Magical Realism set in Mexico, for women. Read and then look at the work of Frida Kahlo in a new light
And a book to help you contemplate the meaning of life "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder, the one this quote comes from ""But soon we will die, and all memories of those five will have left Earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning."
And of course The Poisonwood Bible 