Da Chen was born in Southern China in 1962 to a once-wealthy family of landlords. Coming of age during China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Da witnessed first-hand the incredible persecution and cruelty that could come to the capitalists, "feudal remnants", and intellectual classes which Mao's China came to despise. His family's status as landowner's invited persecution, to the point where Chen's father was hung by his thumbs and sent to multiple labor camps. His brothers and sisters were made to toil in the fields, his grandfather was beaten and harassed to an early grave. Chen overcame the odds by earning the highest possible score on his exams, which granted him admission to the prestigious Beijing Language Institute. From there, Chen moved to the United States where he earned a law degree from Columbia University and worked on Wall Street. After encouragement from his wife, Chen ultimately crafted his childhood memories into his first book, Colors of the Mountain. Unlike the majority of "scar literature" that emerged from this period in China's history, Chen depicts the impact of the Cultural Revolution on a small village, far from China's political epicenter, as seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright, sensitive, and artistic boy. Chen continues his memoir with Sounds of the River, which picks up where Colors of the Mountain leaves off with his boarding of his first train ever for the fifty hour trip to the university in Beijing.
• Colors of the Mountain (2000)
• China's Son: Growing Up in the Cultural Revolution (2001)
• Sounds of the River: A Young Man's University Days in Beijing
