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Ghost Cities: A Novel
Not yet published
Expected 31 Aug 27An award-winning novel from an international rising star—spanning ancient and modern China—in the dazzlingly inventive style of Susanna Clarke, David Mitchell, and Charles Yu.
Inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China, Ghost Cities follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney’s Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn’t speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. The incident goes viral under the hashtag #BadChinese and attracts the attention of the eccentric film director Baby Bao, who uses Lu to attract press for his latest film. Bao’s movie, based on ancient legends, is to be filmed in one of China’s “ghost cities”.
How is his relocation to a ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient emperor creates a thousand doubles of himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known empire is destroyed—then recreated, page by page and book by book—all in the name of love and art?
Inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China, Ghost Cities follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney’s Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn’t speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. The incident goes viral under the hashtag #BadChinese and attracts the attention of the eccentric film director Baby Bao, who uses Lu to attract press for his latest film. Bao’s movie, based on ancient legends, is to be filmed in one of China’s “ghost cities”.
How is his relocation to a ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient emperor creates a thousand doubles of himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known empire is destroyed—then recreated, page by page and book by book—all in the name of love and art?
304 pages, Paperback
Expected publication August 31, 2027
About the author
Siang Lu
4 books83 followersSiang's fiction and literary reviews have appeared in Southerly and Westerly. He holds a Master of Letters from the University of Sydney. He has written for television on Malaysia's Astro network. In 2021, Siang won the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer for The Whitewash. He is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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