Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua

Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua

NATIONAL BESTSELER - A teenage girl living in 1960s China becomes Mao Zedong's prot g e and lover--and a heroine of the Cultural Revolution--in this masterful (The Washington Post) novel.

A new classic about China's Cultural Revolution . . . Think>Succession, but add death and mayhem to the palace intrigue. . . . Ambitious and impressive.--San Francisco Chronicle

ONE OF THE BEST BOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, PopSugar>- Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize

On the eve of China's Cultural Revolution and her sixteenth birthday, Mei dreams of becoming a model revolutionary. When the Communist Party recruits girls for a mysterious duty in the capital, she seizes the opportunity to escape her impoverished village. It is only when Mei arrives at the Chairman's opulent residence--a forbidden city unto itself--that she learns that the girls' job is to dance with the Party elites. Ambitious and whip-smart, Mei beelines toward the Chairman.

Mei gradually separates herself from the other recruits to become the Chairman's confidante--and paramour. While he fends off political rivals, Mei faces down schemers from the dance troupe who will stop at nothing to take her place and the Chairman's imperious wife, who has secret plans of her own.

When the Chairman finally gives Mei a political mission, she seizes it with fervor, but the brutality of this latest stage of the revolution makes her begin to doubt all the certainties she has held so dear.

Forbidden City>is an epic yet intimate portrayal of one of the world's most powerful and least understood leaders during this extraordinarily turbulent period in modern Chinese history. Mei's harrowing journey toward truth and disillusionment raises questions about power, manipulation, and belief, as seen through the eyes of a passionate teenage girl.

Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of a short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities. For two decades, she has been writing, in journalism and fiction, about Asia and the Asian diaspora. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the San Francisco Foundation's James D. Phelan Award, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, as well as honors from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post. A River of Stars is Vanessa Hua's first novel.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780399178825
ISBN 10	0399178821
Title	Forbidden City
Author	Vanessa Hua
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2023-04-18
Number of pages	384
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.