Cover image for Dear chrysanthemums : a novel in stories
Title:
Dear chrysanthemums : a novel in stories
Edition:
First Scribner trade paperback edition.
Publication Date:
2023
Publication Information:
New York : Scribner, 2023.
Physical Description:
164 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN:
9781668012987
Abstract:
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.
Contents:
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).
Subject Term:
Language:
English
Holds: