This book won last year’s US National Book Award for fiction and you can see why. Ha Jin’s descriptions of old China are magical; and his insights into the complexities of love aremoving and painfully sharp

A beautifully written book...Each sentence has a simple rhythm and cadence of its own...Ha Jin has a sly wit, and so a tragic love story becomes...sophisticated and warmhearted... Lovingly detailed

For more than seventeen years, Lin Kong, a dedicated doctor, has been passionately in love with an educated, modern woman, Manna Wu, but back in his traditional home village lives the humble, loyal wife his family chose for him years ago. Every summer, he returns to ask her for a divorce and every summer his compliant wife agrees but then backs out.This time, after eighteen years' waiting, Lin promises it will be different.

Imagine if Romeo and Juliet had been made to stretch out their passion for 18 years, without consummating their love. Now imagine them in China during the crazy bureaucracy of Mao's Cultural Revolution, unable to talk in private let alone kiss...the insights into Chinese culture and the complexities of human longing are beautiful and compelling