北鸢

Set in Xiangcheng, an imagined city between north and south, the novel spans 1926 to 1947 and follows two families: the Lu, merchants, and the Feng, a gentry clan in decline. It opens as Lu Zhaoru, born into the Meng family, adopts the boy Wensheng, and traces his growing up alongside Feng Renzhen. Around them are Zhaoru's sister, married to a warlord, her brother, idling in enforced retirement, and her husband Lu Jiamu, a merchant who does business with honesty and generosity and helps a newly arrived kite-maker, who in return makes a tiger kite for Wensheng in each of his birth-sign years. War and politics stay mostly at the edges as the families' fortunes rise and fall.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Family, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

China, 1926–1947

First published

2016 by People's Literature Publishing House

Author's age

38 when first published