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Ling Zhang

Forfatter af A Single Swallow

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I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review here and on my blog, Samwise Reviews. I was really impressed with the way this book was written. Set in China during World War 2 it introduced us to many different characters, and it did a very good job at keeping them all separate. The book switched perspective every few chapters and invited us into someone else's viewpoint and background and often this can get confusing or tangled, but I didn't find that in this case. I'm using this for the "A Book That Leaves You Thinking" part of my 2020 reading challenge because it's not a story you can move on from quickly. Each character goes through a lot of trials and it was really interesting to learn how they handled each one and the repercussions from them years later.… (mere)
 
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Linyarai | 11 andre anmeldelser | Mar 6, 2024 |
In 1976, a 7.6-scale earthquake rocked the region around Tangshan, China. Hundreds of thousands died, and hundreds of thousands more struggled for survival after houses, essential services, and bridges were leveled. Thirty years later, one survivor Xiaodeng is an acclaimed writer in Toronto, Canada, but is still haunted by the events of that day, when she was just a child. She tries to piece together her personal life, now falling apart. In reconstructing her life by reliving its historical course, she rediscovers herself and reconnects with her Chinese roots.

Author Zhang Ling’s mastery of language and storytelling is profound. She relates this story in non-linear fashion, yet each piece seems well-connected with the prior piece and never awkward. She enmeshes the reader with the complex story of this one family, which comes to involve multiple family units. She draws out the protagonist’s deep-seated emotional wounds that, even decades later, still haven’t healed into livable scars. Ling doesn’t merely expose these hurts, however, by showing them the light of day; she brings the characters – and empathetic readers – towards a healthier emotional place in the end.

The original Chinese version of this tale was adapted into an award-winning movie in China. Although Zhang Ling has tried her hand at writing in the English language more recently, it was left to Shelly Bryant to translate this book for the English-speaking world. The translations is fluid and clear. Ling is clearly comfortable with both Canadian and Chinese cultures and moves readers seamlessly across both settings. She reminds us that despite our differences, all too amplified by politicians and journalists, our common humanity unites us in the most important ways.

Lovers of literary fiction will love this complicated, ornate story whose pieces form a beautiful whole. Many English speakers who appreciate Chinese culture will also fancy this tale. The Chinese community in Toronto, large in number and featured in this book, will especially relate to this book’s marriage of their two rich heritages. I find all of Zhang Ling’s writings evoke sentiments deep in my heart, and Aftershock is no exception. It draws on many foundational human themes in an artful way that bring me to a therapeutic place.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
scottjpearson | Nov 23, 2023 |
Mothers and daughters are a special relationship. But what daughter can fully know who her mother was before she became a mother? This lack of knowledge is complicated even more when the mother doesn't share her past, keeping secrets from her daughter. Zhang Ling's newet novel, Where Waters Meet, explores a daughter's search for her late mother's past, a search that will change her view of her mother and alter herself in the process.

Phoenix's mother Chunya "Rain," has passed away unexpectedly at the age of 83. Rain has lived with Phoenix for her whole life, even after Phoenix married, and her death has devastated her daughter. After discovering her mother's memory box, brought with her from China to Canada, Phoenix has more questions than answers about her mother's life, especially since Rain had been suffering from dementia for the last several years. Reaching out to her Auntie Mei in China, she is told that the stories must be told in person. With her easy-going husband's blessing, she flies over to China to uncover the missing pieces that shaped her mother.

The novel is told in several different formats: third person narration in the present, Phoenix's emails home to George once she lands in China, and a manuscript that Phoenix is writing about her mother but written as if it is Rain's memoir. The story of Rain's life is full of hardship and tragedy, running as it does through the Sino-Japanese War, WWII, and the Civil War between the Communists and the Nationalists. Each time something seems to be looking up, history flip flops and there are additional horrors to live with and through. Ling has seamlessly woven the twentieth century history of China into Rain's life, exposing the horrors perpetrated on the common people. The leaps into the past are not handled chronologically as Auntie Mei recounts things out of order to Phoenix, not only leaving room for additional information to come later but making the story turn back on itself, winding along, much as a river meanders through a landscape. This can come across as a bit disjointed to the reader but works with the nature of memory and a long gone past. Phoenix's desire to know her mother's past and what she learns remakes her own memory of her early life in China, changing her perception of her mother from a woman who ccoasted along relying on others to a strong woman taking charge when she could and making decisions for Phoenix's future over her own. The ending of the novel is quite abrupt and unsatisfying after everything that went before, but over all, the novel combines an intriguing premise with history that we don't often read about in the West. It's a novel of loss and resilience, relationships, secrets and truth, wrapped up in a family saga complicated by history.
… (mere)
 
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whitreidtan | 2 andre anmeldelser | Jul 28, 2023 |
Where Waters Meet is Zhang Ling's second novel to be translated into English. It follows A Single Swallow. It is a heartwrenching story about a daughter and her journey to discovering the truth about her mother's life after her death.

The publisher's summary:

There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother, Rain, didn’t live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix’s life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain’s unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.

Struggling with the loss, Phoenix comes across her mother’s suitcase—a memory box Rain had brought from home. Inside, Phoenix finds two old photographs and a decorative bottle holding a crystallized powder. Her auntie Mei tells her these missing pieces of her mother’s early life can only be explained when they meet, and so, clutching her mother’s ashes, Phoenix boards a plane for China. What at first seems like a daughter’s quest to uncover a mother’s secrets becomes a startling journey of self-discovery.

Told across decades and continents, Zhang Ling’s exquisite novel is a tale of extraordinary courage and survival. It illuminates the resilience of humanity, the brutalities of life, the secrets we keep and those we share, and the driving forces it takes to survive.

I loved this story enough to immediately reread it after finishing it. There is alot of nuance to the story and I wasn't sure whether I picked them all up during the first read. It's such a lovely story which also made me want to read it again. It reminded me of last year's Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu.

Women are the main characters in the book. Phoenix Yuan-Whyller is the narrator. She took care of her mother Rain, born Chunyu, during her entire life including during her marriage to George Whyller. Rain’s sister Mei is another strong character. Rain and Mei's mother is also featured in a few chapters and the reader gets the sense that strength runs in the women of the family. They overcome everything. It was interesting that they chose weak men as husbands. For Rain and Phoenix it was a matter of wanting to take care of someone. Mei is still a mystery to me as she was to both her sister and her niece.

The family originated in China. Rain and Mei lived through three wars there: WWII, the Japanese War and the Civil War between the nationalists and the communists. They suffered severe hunger and bombing raids, as did everyone else in China. Rain and Mei's parents died in a bombing of their village East End. The sisters were captured by Japanese soldiers and forced to be prostitutes. Rain handled it better than Mei who was unable to eat or even get up off her mattress. With her sister's help Mei escaped and joined the communists and fought alongside Mao's warriors. Rain eventually made her way to Hong Kong and then Toronto where she and her daughter lived with Phoenix’s husband George. I see George as weak compared to his wife. He was American and refused to fight in the Vietnam War. He fled to Canada. Rain’s husband was a war hero who was disabled from war wounds and needed a wife to provide for his needs.

While the book begins in Toronto most of the action takes place in China. This family saga is definitely the exquisite tale that it is advertised to be and it has captured my heart. I am rating it way, way over 5 out of 5 stars.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
Violette62 | 2 andre anmeldelser | Jun 29, 2023 |

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Associated Authors

Shelly Bryant Translator

Statistikker

Værker
12
Medlemmer
382
Popularitet
#63,245
Vurdering
4.0
Anmeldelser
18
ISBN
35
Sprog
6

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