北上

In 1901, with China in turmoil, the Italian adventurer Paolo Di Marco, who styles himself Little Polo after Marco Polo, comes to China on the pretext of a cultural survey to look for his younger brother, missing since the Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion. With the interpreter Xie Pingyao, a porter, a boatman and his apprentice and two brothers who fought with the Boxers, he travels north along the Grand Canal from Hangzhou and Wuxi towards Tongzhou. That same year the Qing court ends grain shipments on the canal, and its decline begins. A century later, around 2014, as China debates the canal's worth and seeks World Heritage status for it, the descendants of the travellers find one another, and their scattered family stories join into one.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical, Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

China, 1901 and 2014

First published

2018 by Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House

Author's age

40 when first published

ISBN

9787530218655 (original)

More

Wikidata