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Read a South China Morning Post profile of Vivian by former Books editor Alister McMillan
New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, and Paris: a Shanghai Girl on pages, small screen and the airwaves.
Vivian's Latest Novel
"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's new novel is about a 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 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 new novel have appeared in literary publications so far, three in the U.S. (2006, 2005 and 2003) and one in Hong Kong (2004).
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Vivian's novel Shanghai Girl
"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." From Shanghai Girl
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.
Read the first chapter here, order Shanghai Girl, or download the e-book ($8.00).
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