A fluid, elegant exploration of memory, this novel is a profound meditation on the essence of writing and exile, on the effects of political oppression on the human spirit – and on how that spirit can triumph.
Writing with profound emotion, and in the superb tradition of fiction by such writers as Orhan Pamuk and J. M. Coetzee, Yiyun Li gives us a stunning novel that is at once a picture of life in a special part of the world during a historic period, a universal portrait of human frailty and courage, and a mesmerizing work of art.