I am china a novel

Summary: A sweeping, romantic, and complex novel about two young lovers in contemporary China who struggle to overcome politics, family, and secrets of the past. Mu is a young girl in Beijing, a singer, who is in love with a famous young punk rock musician named Jiang. Jiang has subversive political views, and he has written a manifesto that he keeps trying to broadcast, without much success. Instead, he weaves his politics into his music. We learn their story through Lana, a translator who works for a publisher in London. The publisher has come upon letters exchanged by Mu and Jiang as well as their journals, and as Lana translates we learn more and more about the two lovers. Mu's voice dominates, but the fleeting glimpses of Jiang reveal a complex and conflicted man, and together their relationship is anything but easy. Jiang hates his father, his mother is dead, he is well educated, and he is from the North. Mu, on the other hand, is from the South, and shares a strong emotional bond with her parents. After a particularly fierce fight, Mu leaves China to go on tour performing in the United States. Meanwhile, Jiang pushes his political manifesto further, and once the Chinese government is forced to intervene to stop the publication, we learn that he has hidden the truth about his past and especially about his family.

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