"Let's say that you and I meet for lunch at Yin Yang On the Bund overlooking Shanghai's Huangpu River, I in my silk, claret-colored cheongsam and black tulle shawl and you in your jeans
shirt and chinos. I sip narcissus tea as you look across the gray waters to the other shore and wax sentimental. 'Pudong looks
surreal from here,' you say. ... "
Vivian has just completed a new novel about another former French Concession-raised
Shanghai girl. Running throughout the personal journals of this mixed-race beauty is the thread of recent Chinese attitudes
towards sex and racial heritage. The reader is brought into a private world in recent Chinese history previously unknown
to the West, with anecdotes from past and present in Hong Kong, London, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, and Tokyo narrated with
the protagonist's unique perspective and her extraordinary vulnerability and charm.
Four excerpts of the latest novel have appeared in literary publications so far, three
in the U.S. (2006, 2005 and 2003) and one in Hong Kong (2004).
Click the "Mother & Mick Popov"at the top of this page to read another
published excerpt.
"Shanghai Girl is superb literature
... one of the best of contemporary novels written by Chinese authors; we eagerly await Yang's next literary feat." - Eve
magazine feature story "Shanghai Success"
"Paris
and London played roles in Dickens' famous novel A Tale of Two Cities. In Shanghai
Girl, it is Shanghai and New York." - Artist Profile, The Sampan - Boston
"Vivian Yang's work is among the very best
in demonstrating artistic excellence" -- Barbara Russo, Executive Director, New Jersey State Council on the Arts (NJSCA)
"I admire the fiercely feminine voice that tells
the tale and the complexity of the novel." * "The voice is lively and honest. A pleasure to read. Good, complex
structure. Serious without being somber. Very likeable narrator." * "Authentic writing. Strong individual narrative
voice. A story I want to read." -- NJSCA Judging Panelists
"Shanghai Girl ... is a feat
in itself. ... Yang puts a new, often lighthearted spin on frequently covered topics like Chinese identity, the U.S. immigrant
experience and reverberations of the Cultural Revolution." -- "the word," HK Magazine
"My earliest recollection of Shanghai
was the ambiance surrounding the section of the city near our residence, the part of town known to the locals as 'The Upper
Corner.' Images of the house remain in my head like snapshots - the red tiles on tapered roof, the gray steel window frames
shipped in from Lyons when the house was built, 14-foot ceilings, French windows opening to the verandah, the fenced in garden
with Chinese parasol trees and a rose bush. There was the sound of crying cicadas on humid summer nights, when the ceiling
fans ran all night long and the smell of the mosquito-repellent incense permeated the house. ... And Just above the
house's top floor solarium, between the stucco overhangs, were the words '1928 A.D.' in relief."
SHANGHAI GIRL is a fictional account of protagonist Sha-fei Hongs maturation
from Shanghai to New York in the 1980s. Gordon Lou, a China-born American businessman with ties to triads, and Caucasian American
lawyer Ed Cook are two other main characters. The story is told in the first person by the threesome.
