AFTERSHOCK By Zhang Ling
A catastrophic disaster in China triggers a mother’s heartbreaking choice and a daughter’s reconciliation with the past in this engrossing novel by the author of A Single Swallow and Where Waters Meet. Perfect for fans of Amy Tan, Lisa See, and Min Jin Lee.
In the summer of 1976, an earthquake swallows up the city of Tangshan, China. Among the hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for survival is a mother who makes an agonizing decision that irrevocably changes her life and the lives of her children. In that devastating split second, her seven-year-old daughter, Xiaodeng, is separated from her brother and the mother she loves and trusts. All Xiaodeng remembers of the fateful morning is betrayal.
Thirty years later, Xiaodeng is an acclaimed writer living in Canada with a caring husband and daughter. However, her newfound fame and success do little to cover the deep wounds that disrupt her life, time and again, and edge her toward a breaking point. Xiaodeng realizes the only path toward healing is to return to Tangshan, find her mother, and get closure.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Zhang Ling is the award-winning author of ten novels and numerous collections of novellas and short stories, including A Single Swallow, translated by Shelly Bryant; Where Waters Meet, her first novel written in English; Gold Mountain Blues; and Aftershock, also translated by Bryant. Zhang has won the Chinese Media Literature Award for Author of the Year, the Grand Prize of Overseas Chinese Literary Award, and China Times’ Open Book Award. In her now native Canada, she has received support for her writing from both the Canada Council for the Arts and an Ontario Arts Council grant, and she has been a featured speaker at the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Zhang grew up in Wenzhou, China and now resides in Toronto, Canada.
