Shanghailanders Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2025
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Juli Min is a Korean-American writer based in Shanghai. She was the founding editor and fiction editor of the Shanghai Literary Review. Raised in Seoul, New Jersey and New England, Min attended Phillips Academy Andover and Harvard University, where she studied Russian and comparative literature. She holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College.Told in reverse chronological order, <b>this bold experiment with time pays off beautifully</b>, completely unsettling the reader's expectations. Min's prose is <b>elegant and crystalline</b> as it refracts the family's cruelties.
- Aube Rey Lescure, author of RIVER EAST, RIVER WEST, Guardian
<b>Ambitious </b>. . . a <b>thrilling, futuristic family drama</b> that captures the joys, disappointments, and inside jokes of one Shanghai family in reverse chronological order.
TIME
<b>Tender, atmospheric, and wholly captivating</b> . . . Min has established herself as a <b>sharp </b>chronicler of contemporary China-and of the ever-complicated matters of the heart.
- Kirsten Chen, author of COUNTERFEIT,
<i>Shanghailanders</i> is a <b>wonderful, wildly smart and compelling</b> book. <b>If Shanghai is the future, this terrific novel knows it all. </b> We follow a glorious cluster of characters as they trip over their own longings, in this fiction of real astuteness.
- Joan Silber, author of SECRETS OF HAPPINESS,
<b>Bracing, thrilling, and breathtakingly smart </b>. . . <i>Shanghailanders</i> offers a new way of seeing. Not just of Shanghai, but France, Japan, America, and every last corner of its characters' minds . . . <b>Absolutely extraordinary</b>.
- Liam Callanan, author of PARIS BY THE BOOK,
<b>Lyrical and haunting</b>, <i>Shanghailanders </i>explores the enduring mysteries of family . . . Min movingly portrays the Yangs and their many seasons of love and loss in a metropolis that perpetually rises, falls, and emerges from the ashes.<b> An extraordinary debut.</b>
- Vanessa Hua, author of FORBIDDEN CITY,
<b>Marvellous</b>.
- Laura Zigman, author of SMALL WORLD,
Smart, tender and lyrical - <i>Shanghailanders </i><b>never stops surprising the reader</b> . . .
- Jiaming Tang, author of CINEMA LOVE,
Readers can follow each family member throughout their life -- and <b>discover how lucky it is to have the benefit of hindsight</b>.
- Annie Lewis, "The best books to read in May 2024", Luxury London
Min's <b>remarkable </b>debut novel . . . Having knowledge of these characters' futures before we know about their past makes stumbling on their bygone days all the more <b>touching </b>. . . My answer to my original question of whether this unusual storytelling structure is worthwhile would be a resounding yes.
- Jean Kwok, The New York Times Book Review
An <b>unusual and immersive</b> reading experience.
Kirkus Reviews
Min's debut novel is a complicated family story, told in reverse . . .<b> a family simmering with secrets and tensions</b>.
- "17 New Books Coming in May", The New York Times
Min's debut will be appreciated by readers who relish the joy of discovery and piecing information together to shape the characters and events in their own minds. It is an intriguing portrait of a fragmented family where nothing is ever quite what it seems. A strong option for book groups.
Library Journal
[An] assured debut, told in reverse chronology . . . credibly reflect[ing] the messiness of family. Min is a writer worth keeping tabs on.
Publishers Weekly
With a cosmopolitan scope that takes readers from Shanghai, to Paris, to Boston . . . There's something here for every reader.
- "Most Anticipated Debuts 2024", B&N Reads
<b>Enthralling </b>. . . In her <b>masterful </b>storytelling, <b>Min captures the essence of life</b> in a rapidly changing city and world . . . A <b>captivating read that will linger in the minds of readers</b>.
Booklist
[An] audacious debut . . . Min is<b> a talented writer whose debut shows much promise. Her own future, at least, appears bright.</b>
Washington Post
Min's prose is <b>quick-footed and captivating</b> and the book's structure of a novel-in-stories makes it<b> a perfect holiday read</b>, with interlocking tales to dip into between trips to the pool.
Monocle
<b>A colourful and ambitious novel</b><i>, Shanghailanders</i> deftly unpacks the meaning of family and belonging.
Dazed
Longlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction * Time 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 * The New York Times Editors' Choice
"I think love is when you think you need someone for your survival. Survival, defined broadly."
"The way you think, sometimes . . ."
"The way I think, what?"
"It . . . surprises me. Yoko, we need each other. Family - family is all we have."
'This bold experiment . . . pays off beautifully' Guardian
'Simmering with secrets and tensions' The New York Times
'Quick-footed and captivating . . . a perfect holiday read' Monocle
While the years rewind from 2040 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.
'Min has established herself as a sharp chronicler of contemporary China - and of the ever-complicated matters of the heart' Kirsten Chen, author of COUNTERFEIT
'Never stops surprising the reader' Jiaming Tang, author of CINEMA LOVE
'Audacious' Washington Post
'Colourful and ambitious' Dazed
'The future contained in the past, the past contained in the future . . .'
2040: Leo Yang - handsome, distinguished, a real Shanghai man - is on the train back to the city after seeing his family off at the airport. His wife, Eko, and their two eldest children, Yumi and Yoko, are headed for Boston, though one daughter's revelation will soon reroute them to Paris.
2039: Kiko, their youngest daughter and an aspiring actress, decides to pursue fame at any cost, like her icon Marilyn Monroe.
2038: Yumi comes to Yoko in need, after a college-dorm situation at Harvard goes disastrously wrong.
As the years rewind 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 those in their orbit. Through the speed, technology and history of this old, futuristic city, we catch glimpses of an uncertain, unknowable future.
Whatever may change, universal constants remain: love is complex, life is not fair and family will always be stubbornly connected by blood, secrets and longing. Brilliantly constructed and achingly resonant, Shanghailanders is a mesmerising exploration of marriage, relationships and the layered experience of time.