Lost Daughter of Happiness, The: A Novel - Softcover

Yan, Geling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786887575 ISBN 13: 9780786887576

Publisher: Hyperion, 2002

Synopsis

Los Angeles Times bestseller--now in paperback.

A "sensuous and disquieting new novel" [New York Times] from one of China's most acclaimed novelists, the award-winning screenwriter of Joan Chen's film Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl.

The Lost Daughter of Happiness is an epic and moving love story of individuals intoxicated with one another and yet repeatedly separated by prejudice and mistrust. The novel chronicles the lives of the main characters over decades against a backdrop of social turmoil--the anti-Chinese hysteria that plagued San Francisco.

About this title

Review

'The lush, decadent darkness which pervades Geling Yan's novel about a Chinese prostitute in turn-of-the-century San Francisco makes this an intensely cinematic book.' Big Issue; 'Her great storytelling lets you enjoy silk and embroidery, tea and angling, earrings, everlasting love and derringdo; it lets you, with the luscious vicarious masochism of a true fiction lover, relish the horrors of giving your body to hideous strangers or, as a coolie railroad worker, being beaten to a pulp by striking Caucasian workers.' Observer; 'A challenging work of literature... Skilfully subverts the basic tenet of Orientalism - that the Orient can be read, known, possessed.' Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Geling Yan was born in Shanghai and began writing in the late 1970s as a journalist. Her first novel was published in China in 1985. Following the Tiananmen Square massacre, she left China for the United States. Since then she has written many short stories, including one that was made into the award-winning film Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl. She lives in San Francisco and Africa.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0786887575
• ISBN 13: 9780786887576
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288