Overview

I'm no longer Zhang Delun. I am 58909. We were the Chinese Labour Corps, all 140,000 of us. Sailing eastwards in the final years of the Great War, youth bound to toil behind the trenches of France. Too many of us will never see home again. Anne Zhang's father is missing, the feast for his 85th birthday is going cold. Pride, desperation or hope? Meaningless amid the horror. Somehow I survived, and with Marguerite's help found roots in this foreign land. Never one to share a burden, the years since mother's passing have only claimed the few who remember a painful past. The battlefields have long since scabbed over with cornflowers. My comrades stare back at me as gravestones. I tend to them, lest they be reduced to forgotten characters of a language that no local understands. No one told Anne of their stories, nor does she have time to listen. When I'm gone, who will speak for us?

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9781838905972

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Reviews

“We see the Great War from an entirely new perspective. A remarkable achievement” - PATRICK MARNHAM award-winning author “It’s a story of hardship, survival and love, as well as of belonging and how history shapes us” - THE BIG ISSUE, XINRAN bestselling author of The Good Women of China “Gripping, often startling, elegantly constructed and always convincing. Fan Wu tells her strange story with such humanity and humour that I couldn’t put it down” - HILARY SPURLING award-winning author of Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China “History’s ghosts are remembered, honoured and vindicated in this exquisite tribute” - SANDR A CISNEROS bestselling author of The House on Mango Street

"""We see the Great War from an entirely new perspective. A remarkable achievement"" - PATRICK MARNHAM award-winning author ""It's a story of hardship, survival and love, as well as of belonging and how history shapes us"" - THE BIG ISSUE, XINRAN bestselling author of The Good Women of China ""Gripping, often startling, elegantly constructed and always convincing. Fan Wu tells her strange story with such humanity and humour that I couldn't put it down"" - HILARY SPURLING award-winning author of Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China ""History's ghosts are remembered, honoured and vindicated in this exquisite tribute"" - SANDR A CISNEROS bestselling author of The House on Mango Street"

Author Information

"Fan Wu is a bilingual writer, with her work published in more than ten languages. Born and raised in China, she travelled to the US for graduate studies and later worked in Silicon Valley's high-tech sector. She holds an MA from Stanford University and now lives in California. She is the author of three novels and her short fiction has appeared in numerous leading publications, such as Granta and Ploughshares, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is also a co-founder of the Society of Heart's Delight, which promotes interracial and intercultural dialogue, as well as a trustee and leader of Mothers' Bridge of Love. She is the creator of the ""Chinese Immigrants in Silicon Valley and Beyond"" photoblog."

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