The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Regular price RM59.19 MYR
Unit price
per

Shanghai’s transformation through a beauty queen's tale.

If you're drawn to stories that entwine personal fates with vast historical canvases, "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" might just resonate with you. It offers a window into a woman's life sculpted against the backdrop of a changing Shanghai, capturing the allure and pain of a bygone era with intimate storytelling. As Wang Qiyao's life unwinds through China's turbulent times, her pursuit of beauty and longing for the glamorous life become a poignant reflection of the universal quest for meaning amidst life's impermanence.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

Regular price RM59.19 MYR
Unit price
per
ISBN: 9780231143431
Date of Publication: 2008-02-22
Format: Paperback
Related Collections: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
Goodreads rating: 3.92
(rated by 679 readers)

Description

Infatuated with the glitz and glamour of 1940s Hollywood, Wang Qiyao - a girl born of the longtang, the crowded, labyrinthine alleys of Shanghai's working-class neighborhoods - seeks fame in the Miss Shanghai beauty pageant. This fleeting moment of stardom becomes the pinnacle of her life. During the next four decades, Wang Qiyao indulges in the decadent pleasures of pre-liberation Shanghai, secretly playing mahjong during the Anti-Rightist Movement and exchanging lovers on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Surviving the vicissitudes of modern Chinese history, Wang Qiyao emerges in the 1980s as a purveyor of "old Shanghai" - a living incarnation of a new, commodified nostalgia that prizes splendor and sophistication - only to become embroiled in a tragedy that echoes the pulpy Hollywood noirs of her youth. From the violent persecution of communism to the liberalism and openness of the age of reform, this sorrowful tale of old China versus new, of perseverance in the face of adversity, is a timeless rendering of our never-ending quest for transformation and beauty.
Condition guide
 

Similar Reads

Shanghai’s transformation through a beauty queen's tale.

If you're drawn to stories that entwine personal fates with vast historical canvases, "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" might just resonate with you. It offers a window into a woman's life sculpted against the backdrop of a changing Shanghai, capturing the allure and pain of a bygone era with intimate storytelling. As Wang Qiyao's life unwinds through China's turbulent times, her pursuit of beauty and longing for the glamorous life become a poignant reflection of the universal quest for meaning amidst life's impermanence.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.