Shanghailanders

(Hardback)

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Description

'The future contained in the past, the past contained in the future . . .'

2040: Leo Yang - handsome, distinguished, a real Shanghai man - is on the train back to the city after seeing his family off at the airport. His wife, Eko, and their two eldest children, Yumi and Yoko, are headed for Boston, though one daughter's revelation will soon reroute them to Paris.

2039: Kiko, their youngest daughter and an aspiring actress, decides to pursue fame at any cost, like her icon Marilyn Monroe.

2038: Yumi comes to Yoko in need, after a college-dorm situation at Harvard goes disastrously wrong.

As the years rewind to 2014, Shanghailanders brings readers into the shared and separate lives of the Yang family parent by parent, daughter by daughter, and through the eyes of those in their orbit. Through the speed, technology and history of this old, futuristic city, we catch glimpses of an uncertain, unknowable future.

Whatever may change, universal constants remain: love is complex, life is not fair and family will always be stubbornly connected by blood, secrets and longing. Brilliantly constructed and achingly resonant, Shanghailanders is a mesmerising exploration of marriage, relationships and the layered experience of time.

Reviews

Tender, atmospheric, and wholly captivating . . . Min has established herself as a sharp chronicler of contemporary China-and of the ever-complicated matters of the heart. -- Kirsten Chen, author of COUNTERFEIT
Shanghailanders is a wonderful, wildly smart and compelling book. If Shanghai is the future, this terrific novel knows it all. We follow a glorious cluster of characters as they trip over their own longings, in this fiction of real astuteness. -- Joan Silber, author of SECRETS OF HAPPINESS
Bracing, thrilling, and breathtakingly smart . . . Shanghailanders offers a new way of seeing. Not just of Shanghai, but France, Japan, America, and every last corner of its characters' minds . . . Absolutely extraordinary. -- Liam Callanan, author of PARIS BY THE BOOK
Lyrical and haunting, Shanghailanders explores the enduring mysteries of family . . . Min movingly portrays the Yangs and their many seasons of love and loss in a metropolis that perpetually rises, falls, and emerges from the ashes. An extraordinary debut. -- Vanessa Hua, author of FORBIDDEN CITY
Marvellous. -- Laura Zigman, author of SMALL WORLD

Author Bio

Juli Min is the editor-in-chief and fiction editor of the Shanghai Literary Review. She was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in New Jersey. Min attended Phillips Academy Andover and Harvard University, where she studied Russian and comparative literature. She holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College.