Tiananmen Square

By Lai Wen,

Book cover of Tiananmen Square

Book description

'An extraordinary book. Truly important' William Boyd

'Outstanding ... Intimate as well as epic' Sunday Times

'Poignant and powerful' Daily Mail

'Utterly gripping' The Spectator

'Beautiful and devastating' Irish News

Sunday Times Best Summer Reads 2024

A stunning, deeply moving novel about growing up in Beijing in the 1970s and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Tiananmen Square as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This coming-of-age novel was a bit slow to start, but it's deeply rooted in the author's own experiences and the deeper I went, the more connected I felt to the student protests and tense political climate of 70s China leading up to the student protests in Tiananmen Square. The twist at the end asks us all to question what we know, what the media shows us. and what the state hides. And I wept. It's absolutely worth pushing through some of the slower early pacing to dig into this important historical moment and the questions Lai Wen is asking us…

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