Eileen Chang

"Eileen Chang is one of the great writers of twentieth-century China. At the heart of Chang's achievement is her short fiction - tales of love, longing, and the shifting and endlessly treacherous shoals of family life. Written when Chang was still in her twenties, these stories combine a contemporary sensibility, keenly alert to sexual politics and psychological ambiguity, with a lyricism that echoes the classics of Chinese literature. Love in a Fallen City, the first collection in English of this body of work, introduces American readers to the stark vision of a modern master."--BOOK JACKET

In the midst of the Japanese occupation of China and Hong Kong, two lives become intertwined: Wong Chia Chi, a young student active in the resistance, and Mr. Yee, a powerful political figure who works for the Japanese occupational government. As these two move deftly between Shanghai’s tea parties and secret interrogations, they become embroiled in the complicated politics of wartime—and in a mutual attraction that may be more than what they expected. Written in lush, lavish prose, and with the tension of a political thriller, Lust, Caution brings 1940s Shanghai artfully to life even as it limns the erotic pulse of a doomed love affair.