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The Painter of Shanghai
  • Published: 30 June 2008
  • ISBN: 9780141917498
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496
Categories:

The Painter of Shanghai



Set in 20th Century China, a brilliantly vivid, moving story reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, as evocative as The Piano Tuner

In 1913 an orphan girl boards a steamship bound for Wuhu in South East China. Left in the hands of her soft-hearted but opium-addicted uncle she is delivered to The Hall of Eternal Splendour which, with its painted faces and troubling cries in the night, seems destined to break her spirit.

And yet the girl survives and one day hope appears in the unlikely form of a customs inspector, a modest man resistant to the charms of the corrupt world that surrounds him but not to the innocent girl who stands before him. From the crowded rooms of a small-town brothel, heavy with the smoke of opium pipes and the breath of drunken merchants, to the Bohemian hedonism of Paris and the 1930s studios of Shanghai, Jennifer Epstein’s first novel, based on a true story, is an exquisite evocation of a fascinating time and place, with a breathtaking heroine at its heart.

  • Published: 30 June 2008
  • ISBN: 9780141917498
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 496
Categories:

About the author

Jennifer Cody Epstein

Jennifer Cody Epstein is the internationally bestselling author of four novels, including The Madwomen of Paris, a finalist for the 2024 Edgar Award for Best Novel, as well as Wunderland, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, and The Painter from Shanghai. Her books have been published in more than twenty countries. She has written for The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, McSweeney's, Self, Mademoiselle, and others. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and an MA in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches creative writing in New York and Kyoto, including at Stony Brook University, Columbia University, and Doshisha University.

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Praise for The Painter of Shanghai

Among the new names worth keeping an eye on

Robert McCrumb, Observer
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