Desire, virtue, courtesans (also known as sing-song girls), and the denizens of Shanghai's pleasure quarters are just some of the elements that constitute Han Bangqing's extraordinary novel of late imperial China. Han's richly textured, panoramic view of late-nineteenth-century Shanghai follows a range of characters from beautiful sing-song girls to lower-class prostitutes and from men in positions of social authority to criminals and ambitious young men recently arrived from the country. ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Chinese family becomes enmeshed in a dramatic story, uncovers past secrets and tragedies, and learns that love can transcend death in this “engrossing [and] thought-provoking meditation on what it means to be human” (People, Critic’s Choice) from the acclaimed author of Snow Flower and The Secret Fan.“Electrifying . . . a fascinating and often surprising story of women helping women, women hurting wom...

Chinatown, Vancouver, in the late 1930s and �40s provides the setting for this poignant first novel, told through the vivid and intense reminiscences of the three younger children of an immigrant family. They each experience a very different childhood, depending on age and sex, as they encounter the complexities of birth and death, love and hate, kinship and otherness. Mingling with the realities of Canada and the horror of war are the magic, ghosts, paper uncles and family secrets of Po...

**"Dark, gorgeous…feels authentically Chinese and it works like a charm." --Washington Post Book World on A Case of Two CitiesChief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is offered a bit of luxury by friends and supporters within the Party – a week's vacation at a luxurious resort near Lake Tai, a week where he can relax, and recover, undisturbed by outside demands or disruptions. Unfortunately, the once beautiful Lake Tai, renowned for its...

“Duncan Jepson magically inhabits the life of a young Chinese woman in 1930s Shanghai….I thoroughly enjoyed this book.”—Janice Y. K. Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Piano Teacher“Breathtaking….A great work that will move its readers.”—Hong Ying, international bestselling author of Daughter of the RiverReaders previously enchanted by Memoirs of a Geisha, Empress, and the novels of Lisa See will be capti...

The second book in the Inspector Chen investigationsInspector Chen’s mentor in the Shanghai Police Bureau has assigned him to escort US Marshal Catherine Rohn. Her mission is to bring Wen, the wife of a witness in an important criminal trial, to the United States. Inspector Rohn is already en route when Chen learns that Wen has unaccountably vanished from her village in Fujian. Or is this just what he is supposed to believe? Chen resents his role; he would rather i...

When the murder of a woman is reported to the Shanghai police while Inspector Chen is on vacation, Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation. The victim, Yin Lige, a novelist known for her banned book, has been found dead in her tiny, humble room off the stairwell of a converted multi-family house. It seems that only a neighbor could have committed the crime, for the building is kept locked at night. But there is no apparent motive. Sergeant Yu tries to unravel the reclusiv...

**Originally banned in China but later named one of that nation’s most influential books, a searing novel that portrays one man’s transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant.“A work of astounding emotional power.” —Dai Sijie, author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress**From the author of Brothers and China in Ten Words: this celebrated contemporary classic of Chinese literature was also adapted for film by Zh...

Judge Dee, master detective of seventh-century China, sets out to solve a puzzling double murder and discovers complex passions lurking beneath academia.A mild-mannered student is rumored to have been slain by a fox-demon, while a young dancer meets her death as she dresses to perform for the magistrate's illustrious dinner guests—an obese Zen monk revered for his calligraphy, a beautiful poetess accused of murder, and the past president of the imperial academy. To ...

Disappearing Moon Cafe was a stunning debut novel that has become a Canadian literary classic. An unflinchingly honest portrait of a Chinese Canadian family that pulses with life and moral tensions, this family saga takes the reader from the wilderness in nineteenth-century British Columbia to late twentieth-century Hong Kong, to Vancouver’s Chinatown.Intricate and lyrical, suspenseful and emotionally rich, it is a riveting story of four generations of women whose lives ar...

"Having her own detective agency would give herthe independence she had always longed for. Itwould also give her the chance to show those peoplewho shunned her that she could be successful. Peoplewere getting rich. They owned property, money,business, and cars. With new freedom and opportunitiescame new crimes. There would be much thatshe could do."Present day, Beijing. Mei Wang is a modern, indepen...

In a sunny California apartment, a young woman and her fiancé arrive to record her great-grandmother's story. The story that unfolds of Precious Orchid's life in China, where she rises from a childhood of shame to become one of the most successful courtesans in the land, is unlike any they've heard before. . .When Precious Orchid's father is falsely accused of a crime and found guilty, he is executed, leaving his family a legacy of dishonor. Her mother's only option is to enter a B...