Dear chrysanthemums : a novel in stories
(2023)

Fiction

Book

Call Numbers:
FICTION/SZE-LORRAIN,F

Availability

Locations Call Number Status
Fiction FICTION/SZE-LORRAIN,F Available

Details

PUBLISHED
New York : Scribner, 2023
EDITION
First Scribner trade paperback edition
DESCRIPTION

164 pages ; 22 cm

ISBN/ISSN
9781668012987, 1668012987 :, 1668012987, 9781668012987
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Yi -- means one -- Death at the Wukang Mansion (1966) -- Cooking for Madame Chiang (1946) -- Green (1966) -- A change of wind (1976) -- The invisible window (2016) -- The white piano (1996) -- Reading a table (1976/1996) -- Neither an elegy nor a dream (1996) -- Back to Beijing (2016) -- News from Saigon (1995-1996) -- Dear chrysanthemums (1946/1966-1976/1996-2006)

"A startling and vivid debut novel in stories from acclaimed poet and translator Fiona Sze-Lorrain featuring deeply compelling Asian women who reckon with the past, violence, and exile-set in Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Paris, and New York. "Cooking for Madame Chiang," 1946: Two cooks work for Madame Chiang Kai-shek and prepare a foreign dish craved by their mistress, which becomes a political weapon and leads to their tragic end. "Death at the Wukang Mansion," 1966: Punished for her extramarital affair, a dancer is transferred to Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution and assigned to an ominous apartment in a building whose other residents often depart in coffins. "The White Piano," 1996: A budding pianist from New York City settles down in Paris and is assaulted when a mysterious piano arrives from Singapore. "The Invisible Window," 2016: After their exile following the Tiananmen Square massacre, three women gather in a French cathedral to renew their friendship and reunite in their grief and faith. Evocative, vivid, disturbing, and written with a masterly ear for language, Dear Chrysanthemums renders a devastating portrait of diasporic life and inhumanity, as well as a tender web of shared memory, artistic expression, and love"--