Shanghai

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Rumors From Shanghai • Amy Sommers

Is the English-language bookshelf already too full of novels set in pre-WW2 China? Has that rich seam of Shanghai ore not been thoroughly exhausted? And on a broader note, is it time to move on from the Second World War? No, no, and thrice no. Shanghai was by population count [...]

The Dancing Girl and the Turtle • Karen Kao

Karen Kao’s debut novel The Dancing Girl & the Turtle is an ambitious, striking addition to the novels showing the sleazy side of 1930s Shanghai. Impatient to get to the magical city of Shanghai, recently orphaned 18-year-old Anyi Song disregards instructions to wait for an escort, setting off from Soochow by herself. [...]

City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir • Paul French

City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir is a masterpiece, one that could probably only have been written by Paul French. This narrative non-fiction account of Western gangsters in 1930s Shanghai is I think his best work – even better than Midnight in Peking, which was an investigation into the unsolved [...]

Shanghai Lawyer • Norwood F. Allman

Shanghai Lawyer. It’s an uninspiring title and even the author’s name – Norwood F. Allman – has the dullness of an accountant about it. But Allman was very much more than just a lawyer, and his memoir is one of my all-time favourites. For breadth and depth of experience during [...]

Bloody Saturday: Shanghai’s Darkest Day • Paul French

When did the Second World War begin? The conventional date is September 1, 1939, with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland and the subsequent declarations of war by France and the United Kingdom on the third of the month. However, with a growing appreciation for China’s important wartime role, historians are increasingly looking to the Second Sino-Japanese [...]