Product details
- ISBN 9781784160005
- Weight: 325g
- Dimensions: 126 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 23 Apr 2015
- Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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THE ACCLAIMED NOVEL BY THE AUTHOR OF OLD SOUL
A sweeping tale of love, fate and sacrifice told through five lives over a thousand years of history
A New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book of the Year.
Shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction
'Reads as China's Midnight's Children. Utterly remarkable' Independent
'A kaleidoscopically imaginative novel' The New Yorker
'Multi-layered and masterful' Guardian
Five lives to live, one life to die ...
Beijing, 2008, the Olympics are coming, but as taxi driver Wang circles the city's congested streets, he feels barely alive. His daily grind is suddenly interrupted when he finds a letter in the sunshade of his cab. He is being warned: Someone is watching him. Someone who claims to be his soulmate and to have known him for over a thousand years.
Other letters follow, and Wang will re-live an astonishing five lives with his soulmate:
- as spirit-brides in the Tang Dynasty;
- young slaves during the Mongol invasion;
- concubines plotting to kill the emperor;
- assistants to a kidnapping in the Opium War;
- and Red Guards during the Cultural revolution.
As each past life unfolds, Wang feels the watcher. In the shadows. Growing closer ...
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PRAISE FOR SUSAN BARKER:
'[A] kaleidoscopically imaginative novel...Barker stitches together an unnervingly perceptive portrait of China and of the enduring influence that its past has on the present' THE NEW YORKER
'A thrilling journey through a thousand years of obsession and betrayal, this is the most extraordinary work of imagination you'll read all year' ADAM JOHNSON, Winner of the PULITZER Prize for Fiction
'Erudite, intriguing and compulsively readable, Susan Barker, a born story-teller, has written one of the most remarkable novels of recent years' JOHN BOYNE
'A brilliant, mind-expanding, and wildly original novel' CHRIS CLEAVE
'A hallucinatory ride. Highly recommend' ANNA HOPE
For OLD SOULS: ‘Sinister, mysterious and gorgeously realised.’ Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time.
‘An immersive, stunningly weird tale that closes like a trap round the reader.’ The Guardian
‘[An] immersive and subtle horror story, weaving a delicately complex plot that leaves the reader with a lingering sense of dread.’ The Spectator
‘Super-sophisticated horror, as indebted to literary fiction as it is to gothic gore.’ The Times
‘As unnerving as it is beautifully written… A mesmerising, genre-bending read.’ The i Paper
