Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
A Novel
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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Narrated by:
Janet Song
Buy Now for £12.84
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Narrated by:
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Janet Song
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By:
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Lisa See
“A marvel of imagination . . . so mesmerizing the pages float away and the story remains clearly before us from beginning to end.”—Amy Tan, author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles
“[A] marvelous narrative . . . a timeless portrait of a contentious, full-blooded female friendship.”—Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)
“An achingly beautiful, understated, and absorbing story of love . . . evokes the work of Jane Austen.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, or “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she has written a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men.
As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on the fan and compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. They both endure the agony of footbinding and together reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.
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Critic reviews
“Lisa See has written her best book yet. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is achingly beautiful, a marvel of imagination of a real and secret world that has only recently disappeared. It is a story so mesmerizing the pages float away and the story remains clearly before us from beginning to end.”—Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings
“I was mesmerized by this wondrous book–the story of a secret civilization of women, who actually lived in China not long ago. . . . Magical, haunting fiction. Beautiful.”—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Fifth Book of Peace
“Only the best novelists can do what Lisa See has done, to bring to life not only a character but an entire culture, and a sensibility so strikingly different from our own. This is an engrossing and completely convincing portrayal of a woman shaped by suffering forced upon her from her earliest years, and of the friendship that helps her to survive.”—Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
“I was mesmerized by this wondrous book–the story of a secret civilization of women, who actually lived in China not long ago. . . . Magical, haunting fiction. Beautiful.”—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Fifth Book of Peace
“Only the best novelists can do what Lisa See has done, to bring to life not only a character but an entire culture, and a sensibility so strikingly different from our own. This is an engrossing and completely convincing portrayal of a woman shaped by suffering forced upon her from her earliest years, and of the friendship that helps her to survive.”—Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
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