A family saga spanning fifty years and three generations, which takes the reader from the France of the Golden Age to poverty-stricken post-war Shanghai via the re-imagined rural China of the Cultural Revolution.
Ah-Mei and her French grandmother, Nainai, share a rare bond. Maybe because Ah-Mei is the only girl grandchild, or maybe because the pair look so alike – and because neither look much like the rest of their Chinese family. Politics and war make 1960s Shanghai a hard place to grow up, especially when racism and bigotry are rife, and everyone is suspicious of Nainai’s European heritage. Ah-Mei and her family suffer much in this time of political upheaval, and when the family silk business falters, they are left with almost nothing. But Ah-Mei and her grandmother are resourceful, and they have one another – and the tenderness they share brings them great strength.
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Cao Wenxuan is one of China's most important children's writers and is widely considered the country's most subtle and philosophical, often referred to as China's very own Hans Christian Andersen. He is a professor of Chinese literature at Peking University, and has in turn taught some of China's best young writers. Many of his books have been bestsellers, i
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