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Shop nowThe Language of Solitude
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Learn moreBrooding expat and journalist Paul Leibovitz is beginning to imagine a new life for himself in Hong Kong, one in which the grief over a recent family tragedy doesn’t consume him and his love for Christine Wu brings him great joy. When Christine gets an unexpected and emotionally-charged letter from her estranged brother, Paul journeys with her to a remote village outside Shanghai, where a mysterious illness is affecting the locals.
Paul discovers a powerful chemical conglomerate is polluting a nearby lake, and Chinese officials are doing nothing to stop it. The victims demand justice, but taking legal action could prove even more dangerous than the strange disease itself. Government intimidation and political corruption threaten to suppress even the most passionate and audacious environmental activists. If Paul doesn’t walk away, he could pull the woman he loves back into a world she escaped from decades ago—putting their relationship and their lives at risk.
Suspenseful and rife with the page-turning storytelling that defines Sendker’s remarkable work and harks back to The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, The Language of Solitude offers a peerless look into contemporary China.
Jan-Philipp Sendker is an internationally bestselling author born in Hamburg in 1960. He was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Wall, a nonfiction book about China. His first novel, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, is an international bestseller, and the sequel, A Well-Tempered Heart, appeared in 2013. He lives in Berlin with his family.
Actor George Newbern has appeared in Father of the Bride, Father of the Bride II, Evening Star, Adventures in Babysitting, and many other films. On television, he has had roles on Friends, Nip/Tuck, Hot in Cleveland, CSI, and more. George is also known for providing the voice of Superman in Justice League.
Janet Song is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards and was named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of 2008. Recent audiobooks include Euna Lee’s The World is Bigger Now and Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls. She lives and works in Southern California as an actor on stage and screen.
Christine Lo (previously known as Christine Slenczka) worked for several years as an editor for various British publishers before she began working as a translator of German literature into English in 2002. Her published translation work includes, among others, Eagles and Angels by Juli Zeh and An Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky.
Reviews
“This new novel gives readers another vivid, fascinating, and haunting look at today’s China. Highly recommended.”
“Thoughtful, politically astute…This novel offers a rich portrait of compromise and courage under a repressive state.”
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