Forbidden City

(Author)
Available

Product Details

Price
$28.00  $26.04
Publisher
Ballantine Books
Publish Date
Pages
368
Dimensions
6.4 X 9.3 X 1.5 inches | 1.3 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780399178818

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About the Author

Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of the novel A River of Stars and a story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, among others. She has filed stories from China, Burma, South Korea, and elsewhere, and her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She has taught most recently at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

Reviews

"Vanessa Hua has written a grand, cinematic, and captivating novel. With robust and compassionate imagination, Hua brings to life a heroine who has been relegated to the dustbins of history."--Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings

"In this intriguing and suspenseful story, Hua tells of a girl who becomes a lover and worshipper of Chairman Mao, plotting revolution after revolution. How to negotiate the maze of the Forbidden City? How to escape?"--Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior

"Forbidden City is a wonderful novel, immersive and fascinating. Vanessa Hua writes with an audacious mix of intimacy and narrative sweep about one of the most enigmatic figures and most misunderstood moments in history."--Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins

"Vanessa Hua's captivating second novel is an act of resistance and reclamation. Forbidden City explores questions of power, ambition, and visibility through a lens that is both clear-eyed and compassionate."--Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists

"Arresting, beautiful, and epic, Forbidden City left me breathless by the last page. Hua's writing is propulsive and packed with rich historical details and exquisitely crafted characters. Mei's story will stay with you long after reading."--Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept

"Gripping and vital, Forbidden City charts the sensual, intellectual, and moral awakening of a young woman who forges her own identity from beneath the shadow of Mao Zedong."--C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold

"Hua's provocative latest (after A River of Stars) follows a bold and shrewd woman as she navigates China's political scene amid the Cultural Revolution. . . . Hua masterly presents Mei's attempts to leave the Lake Palaces with their 'power, secrecy, and isolation' behind as she processes her trauma. This finds a brilliant new perspective on familiar material via its story of a young woman's brush with power. It's magnificent."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)