The United States is a mixed country, a home of different people from all over the world, often of those who flee away from their country in searching for freedom. Da Chen and Carlos Eire are among those countless refugees, who had spent their childhood in war time, and whose memories have enabled them to write beautiful novels. Da Chen wrote “Colors of The Mountain”, and Carlos Eire wrote “Waiting for Snow in Havana”. Although these two authors come from two different countries and wrote two different stories about their own pasts, their novels share some interesting similarities.
Da Chen’s “Colors of the Mountain” is a memoir about the author’s childhood in China, when the country was under cruel government, in which the citizens had little or no voice in the system that governed them. According to Da Chen, the Chinese government at that time was worse that “school was chaos” and “teachers could do almost nothing to remedy the situation for fear of being branded a stinking intellectual or a counterrevolutionary” (page 114). Similarly, the government of Cuba which Eire describes in “Waiting for Snow in Havana” was also under a bad dictator named Castrol, and most of the people who fought against him to bring the good things back were killed.
Another interesting similarity between the books is that both of the main characters, who are also the authors, come from rich families. In “Colors of the Mountain”, Da Chen’s grandfather was a land owner, who was forced to work at a labor camp and was treated poorly. The Chinese government, under Mao’s leadership, feared that the rich and educated people would find a way to overthrow the government, and they had tried to prevent that by taking away properties of rich people and sending them away. Da Chen’s grandfather was humiliated and beaten in public. Because of his background, Da Chen faces harsh treatments from his classmates. Everyone of Da Chen’s family has been treated unfairly. In a similar way, Eire in...