In this review of Daughters of the Bamboo Grove (2025) by American journalist Barbara Demick, Australian academic Kathryn Shine recounts Demick’s journey through rural China in 2009 and how this eventually led to the reunion of Zanhua and her lost daughter, Fanfang/Esther.

Shine writes: “Demick outlines the population growth that led to the introduction of the One Child Policy in 1979 and the rise of the State Family Planning Commission, set up to enforce the law limiting most Chinese families to one child.”

Kathryn Shine also covers Demick’s account of Chinese babies became part of the lucrative international adoption business.

She concludes:

“Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is a testament to dogged reporting. Demick’s skills as a researcher, interviewer – and effectively, a detective – imbue the book with substance and credibility.”