Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong
Dutton, 2024

About the book
Set against the glittering backdrop of Los Angeles during the gin-soaked Jazz Age and the rise of Hollywood, this debut book celebrates Anna May Wong, the first Asian American movie star. Plucked from her family’s laundry business in Los Angeles, Wong rose to stardom in Douglas Fairbanks’s 1924 blockbuster The Thief of Bagdad — but when Hollywood repeatedly cast her in stereotypical roles, she headed abroad in protest. She starred in acclaimed films in Berlin, Paris, and London and then returned to challenge Hollywood by speaking out about the industry’s blatant racism.

About the author
Katie Gee Salisbury is a fifth-generation Chinese American who writes the newsletter “Half-Caste Woman.” She was a finalist for the 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and gave the TED Talk “As American as Chop Suey.” Salisbury has spoken about Anna May Wong on MSNBC and written about her in the New York Times and Vanity Fair.

Purchase the book
Please help support local independent bookstores by purchasing this book at Browseabout Books, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Online sources and digital versions are tempting; however, supporting local brick and mortar shops helps to preserve our vibrant main streets. Drop by Browseabout, order books online, or call the store at 302-226-2665. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes.

About the Festival
The History Book Festival is the first and only book festival in the United States devoted exclusively to history. With the help of our presenting funding partners — Delaware Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices | PenFed Realty — as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2024 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. Our Keynote event is presented by Sally Mott Freeman and John K. Freeman, and our Closing event is presented by Griswold Home Care for Sussex and Kent Counties. Saturday’s Spirited Discussion, our gathering for attendees and presenters to celebrate and discuss their day, is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.

Special thanks to our Founding Program Partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library, for event promotion and production, and Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival. Thanks also to: the  Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.

Additional thanks to our community partners: CAMP Rehoboth, Harriet Tubman Museum and Educational Center,  Historic Lewes Farmers Market, Lewes Historical Society, Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach Film Society, Seaside Jewish Community, and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ).