Shanghailanders

Shanghailanders is a moving debut novel that explores the lives of the Yang family, a family of four living in Shanghai in 2040. The novel follows the Yangs as they navigate their own desires and attempts to connect with one another, while also dealing with the changing world around them. Through the eyes of the people in their orbit, including a nanny, a private driver, and a grandmother, the novel explores the complexities of love, family, and survival. Shanghailanders is a dazzlingly constructed and achingly resonant exploration of everything that follows happily ever after, and the ways a family makes and remakes itself across the years.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 09 May 2024
Publisher: Dialogue

Love, in my opinion, is when you believe you require someone for your survival, in a broad sense. Sometimes, even how you think. What do you think? It... amazes me. Yoko, we need one another. Family is all we have. Smart, tender, and lyrical, SHANGHAILANDERS is a moving debut novel that never stops surprising the reader. This is the kind of book I wish I'd read when I first was learning to write.

While the years unwind from 2040 back to 2014, SHANGHAILANDERS brings readers into the shared and separate lives of the Yang family, parent by parent, daughter by daughter, and through the eyes of the people in their orbit: a nanny from the provinces, a private driver with a penchant for danger, and a grandmother whose memories of the past echo the present. As they build their lives in this old, futuristic city, we see Leo, his wife Eko, and their daughters Yumi, Yoko, and Kiko trip over their own desires in their bids to connect with one another, in their attempts to be a family.

Though the world shifts and brings change for each of the Yangs, universal constants remain: love is complex, and family will always be stubbornly connected by blood, secrets, and longing.

Dazzlingly constructed and achingly resonant, SHANGHAILANDERS is an unforgettable exploration of everything that follows happily ever after - and the ways a family makes and remakes itself across the years.

A wonderful and wildly smart and compelling book. If Shanghai is the future, this terrific novel knows it all.

Joan Silber

Weight: 512g
Dimension: 163 x 243 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780349704074