Love in a Fallen City

Eileen Chang

In the title novella, a divorced woman and an elusive suitor circle one another in colonial Hong Kong, where romance is inseparable from money, status and the need for security. Hotels, social rituals and carefully guarded conversations create a world of elegant surfaces and private calculation, unsettled by approaching war. This English-language collection also includes stories set in Shanghai; its Hong Kong centrepiece offers an intimate, unsentimental view of people trying to secure a future in a fragile city.

Colonialism; Relationships; War