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An explosion reverberates through the Swan Hotel in Shanghai, and it is not just shards of glass that come crashing down. Li Jing and Zhou Meiling find their marriage rocked to its foundations by the loss of the language that brought them together. For Li Jing, who is injured in the explosion, awakens from brain surgery only able to utter the unsteady phrases of English he learnt as a child - a language that Meiling and their young son Pang Pang cannot speak. When an American neurologist arrives, tasked with coaxing language back on to Li Jing's tongue, she is as disorientated as her patient in this bewitching, bewildering city. As doctor and patient sit together, feelings neither of them anticipated begin to take hold. Feelings that Meiling, who must fight to keep both her husband's business and her family afloat, does not need a translator to understand. A sensitive exploration of the power of words and of silence, "The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai" is a wonderfully evocative debut about love and language, duty and passion, in a vibrant modern city. 'An engrossing novel that will enchant you from beginning to end' David Ebershoff, author of The 19th Wife 'Intelligent and thoughtful ... A novel which makes us think beyond our boundaries' Clare Morrall, author of Astonishing Splashes of Colour 'A gem of a debut ... There is such deep silence in her prose, hinting at the depth of human suffering, anguish and hope. A gifted novelist, she gives us the insight into a Shanghai that is at once strange and familiar, old and new' Da Chen, author of Brothers 'From the explosion of its first pages to the searing emotion of its last, this is a novel that burns with the heat of clashing cultures and love transformed. Ruiyan Xu is a wonderful writer with a perfect ear for both the words and the silences that define us' Peter Manseau, author of Songs for the Butcher's Daughter

Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai