Elif Shafak

Margaret Atwood

Lola Shoneyin

Mary Beard

Erica Benner

Lea Ypi

Yuan Yang

Kaja Kallas

Aditi Mittal

Vjosa Osmani

Adela Raz

A WATERSTONES BEST POLITICS BOOK OF 2024 This is an exceptional moment for democracy. In the year of elections, read Margaret Atwood, Mary Beard, Lea Ypi, Elif Shafak and more on what democracy means - and why it matters. In 2024, nearly half the world will take part in a national election, with billions heading to the polls. It's a thrilling, unprecedented opportunity for change - yet democracy is also under threat. Women are at the forefront of the fight for democratic rights, as well as being the most vulnerable when those rights disappear. Here, eleven extraordinary women - leaders, philosophers, historians, writers and activists - explore democracy's power to uplift our societies. Between its ancient origins and its modern challenges, they share a vision for a better future - one we can build together.

Eleven writers and leaders on what it is – and why it matters

Democracy

A Sunday Times, Observer, Waterstones and BBC Highlight for 2024 'Beautiful, immersive . . . Told through the lives of four extraordinarily resilient and idealistic Chinese women' JULIA LOVELL 'A book of delights. Yuan Yang shows us the real China in all its complexity' JOHN SIMPSON 'A revelatory, moving and tender tale of hopes, fears and change' PETER FRANKOPAN This is a book about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, dreaming of better futures. It is about Leiya, who wants to escape the fate of the women in her village. Still underage, she bluffs her way on to the factory floor. It is about June, who at fifteen sets what her family thinks is an impossible goal: to attend university rather than raise pigs. It is about Siyue, ranked second-to-bottom of her English class, who decides to prove her teachers wrong. And it is about Sam, who becomes convinced that the only way to change her country is to become an activist – even as the authorities slowly take her peers from the streets. With unprecedented access to the lives, hopes, homes, dreams and diaries of four ordinary women over a period of six years, Private Revolutions gives a voice to those whose stories go untold. At a time of rising state censorship and suppression, it unearths the identity of modern Chinese society – and, through the telling, something of our own.

Coming of Age in a New China

Private Revolutions

Yuan Yang

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