Chenxi and the Foreigner
By (Author) Sally Rippin
Text Publishing
The Text Publishing Company
3rd March 2008
Australia
Young Adult
Fiction
A823.3
Paperback
256
Width 129mm, Height 197mm, Spine 16mm
168g
Is falling in love with a stranger what it means to be a foreignerAt eighteen, Anna is in limbo. She has decisions to make but stalls for time. Deferring her university studies in Australia, she visits her father in Shanghai. In an exotic environment, her life seems both better and worse- she loves learning Chinese painting but can't cope with being a foreigner, or with the chaos and heat of the city.Then the last thing she could have imagined happens- she falls in love with Chenxi, a young, mysterious fellow painter whose secret life in art and counter-revolutionary activities fascinates Anna. Their affair is passionate and fraught.Sally Rippin writes with a natural flair and an insider's voice about the torment of a teenager on the verge of adulthood. She evokes the thrills and spills of being a foreigner in the topsy-turvy world of China.Chenxi is a remarkable novel for young adults that confronts adolescent sexual experience, pregnancy and cross-cultural questions in an extraordinarily vivid and compelling story.
Sally Rippin was born in Darwin and grew up in South-East Asia. As a young adult she studied traditional Chinese painting for three years in Shanghai and Hangzhou, which inspired her first novel Chenxi and the Foreigner. Sally is the author of many books for children, including the popular Billie B Brown and Hey Jack! series, and the highly acclaimed children's novel Angel Creek. Currently, she lives in Melbourne with her partner and three sons, and writes and illustrates full time.