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Non-Fiction Anthology1999Pearson IGCSE Language A (4EA1)

Chinese Cinderella

by Adeline Yen Mah (b. 1937)

Yen Mah recalls her childhood in mid-twentieth-century China as the unwanted daughter blamed for her mother’s death, and how academic success became her way of being seen.

FamilyRejectionResilienceIdentity

UK rights notice

Rights notice: © Adeline Yen Mah 1999, reproduced in the anthology by permission of Penguin Books, Delacorte Press (Random House Children’s Books) and Penguin Random House Australia. Quotations are short fair-dealing extracts under CDPA 1988 §30 (criticism, review, quotation). For full text, students should consult the anthology (ISBN 978-1-446-93108-0), which Pearson publishes free as a PDF.

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Edexcel IGCSE Language (4EA1)

Assessed in

4EA1 Component 1 (Unit 1) Section A. All ten are compulsory.

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All ten texts in Part 1 are compulsory.

Part 1 of the anthology, page 21.

Source: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, Issue 8, February 2026 (read 2026-09-19).

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