Madeleine Thien

Why did people, who lived so briefly in this universe, contain so much time? Lina and her father have arrived at an enclave called the Sea, a staging-post between migrations, with only a few possessions, among them three volumes from The Great Voyagers encyclopedia series. In this mysterious and shape-shifting building made of time, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends...

A moving and extraordinary evocation of the 20th-century tragedy of China... compelling — Guardian SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION AND THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home. Ai-Ming has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. As her relationship with Marie deepens, Ai-Ming...

Is there an autonomous republic of art that transcends time and place? Canadian writer Madeleine Thien reflects on a fragment of a mural depicting Three Uighur Princes from one of the Bezeklik Caves along the Northern Silk Road, in what is now the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China. This most renowned donor portrait of Uighur-Buddhist art was brought to...

In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. Her name is Ai-Ming. As her relationship with Marie deepens, Ai-Ming tells the story of her family in revolutionary China, from the crowded teahouses in the first days of Chairman...