Event Coverage Highlight

One is Chinese. One is American. How China correspondent Barbara Demick discovered and eventually reunited identical twins. Based on a decade of reporting in rural China, “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove”  tells the heartrending true story of twin sisters separated by China’s one-child policy—and the international network that turned that tragedy into profit. One of the New York Time’s best 25 books of 2025.

As tens of thousands of families with adopted children from China turn to DNA testing, new connections are emerging among the 160,000 Chinese adoptees worldwide, upending what many thought they knew about their origins. In following one family’s journey through loss and rediscovery, “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove” illuminates the collective trail of those still searching for the truth of where they come from—and who they are.

Edward Wong, diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, will talk with Demick about her book. Wong has reported for The New York Times for 25 years, working for 13 of those as a correspondent and bureau chief from China and Iraq. His riveting family memoir, “At the Edge of Empire – an epic story of modern China” was publlshed in 2024. 

Barbara Demick is a prize-winning author and foreign correspondent.  Previous books include “Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town” and “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea”, which won the U.K.’s Samuel Johnson Award (now Baillie Gifford). She was bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times in Beijing and Seoul and previously reported from the Middle East and Balkans for the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Register to attend here,

Buy “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove” here 

Buy “At the Edge of Empire” here

Click here to watch Wong talk about his book at an OPC book night in December 2024 or watch below.