Forbidden City

Forbidden City - Paperback

$22.00
$22.00
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Forbidden City
  • Forbidden City
Forbidden City - Paperback

Forbidden City - Paperback

by Vanessa Hua
$22.00
$22.00
Format
Paperback $22.00 Hardcover $19.99 Paperback $9.99

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A teenage girl living in 1960s China becomes Mao Zedong's protégée 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 BOOKS 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.
ISBN9780399178825
Author Vanessa Hua
PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
GenreLiterature
FormatPaperback
PublishedApril 2023
LanguageENG- English
Pages384
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Asian American Fiction Historical Fiction Women

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More by Vanessa Hua

Forbidden City

Forbidden City - Paperback

Forbidden City - Paperback

By Vanessa Hua

About Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua is the author of the national bestselling novels A River of Stars and Forbidden City, as well as the story collection Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors' Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and a Steinbeck Fellowship, as well as awards from the de Groot Foundation, Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association. She was a finalist for the California Book Award, Northern California Book Award, and New American Voices Award. A former longtime columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, her award-winning work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA Program and elsewhere. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

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