Remembering Shanghai, Isabel Sun Chao
Remembering Shanghai, Isabel Sun Chao
86 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Remembering Shanghai
A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels

Author: Isabel Sun Chao, Claire Chao

Narrator: Rachel Yong, Claire Chao, Isabel Sun Chao

Unabridged: 7 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/21/2020


Synopsis

Rubery Award BOOK OF THE YEAR

Writer’s Digest GRAND PRIZE

An Extraordinary Multigenerational Saga

Audiobook narrated by two-time Asian American Film Lab best actress winner Rachel Yong and authors Isabel Sun Chao and Claire Chao

“Jaw-dropping, touching, insightful.” Historic Shanghai

A high position bestowed by China's empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. Isabel lives a privileged life in glamorous 1930s and '40s Shanghai, sheltered from civil war and Japanese occupation by her scholar father and fashionable mother. But they cannot shield the family forever.

When Mao comes to power, 18-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing she will never see her father again. The family she has left behind struggles to survive, only to have their world shattered by the Cultural Revolution. Isabel returns to Shanghai 50 years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family's past—one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering pleasure palaces and underworld crime bosses.

Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to vibrant Shanghai to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid, meticulously researched memoir explores identity, loss and the unpredictable nature of life against the epic backdrop of a nation in turmoil.

To enhance your enjoyment of the book, listen along with a lavishly illustrated printed copy or ebook, which include 160 rarely published historical images, private family photographs and watercolor illustrations.

https://rememberingshanghai.com/audiobook/


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rachel on September 30, 2020

Full disclosure: I am narrating the audiobook for this, so get excited! This memoir strikes a personal register. I realize, sitting here at the end of it, that I've never actually read a Chinese memoir of any kind, male, female, American, Chinese, present, past, nothing. So it's hard to describe the......more

Goodreads review by Dick on October 25, 2018

Although it’s called a memoir, this book is also a work of art and a fascinating bit of history. The authors are mother and daughter, Isabel being the mother who was born in Shanghai in 1931. Claire was born in 1961 when the family lived in Hong Kong. Isabel’s father moved to Shanghai in 1913 when......more

Goodreads review by Nursebookie on November 08, 2021

Remembering Shanghai is such a beautiful book that is part memoir, part history book, one that reads like fiction, and one deserving of all the accolades. I found the story riveting and with the accompanying photographs making this an immersive, vivid, and propulsive read. I loved this! ⁣⁣......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on April 15, 2018

There are so many ways to tell a family story, and so many ways to tell history, and yet Claire and Isabel Sun Chao have somehow discovered a refreshingly new way to narrate the past. The five generations of relatives, friends, lovers, business partners, and everything between depicted here together......more

Goodreads review by Renn on July 24, 2018

Through no fault of its own, Remembering Shanghai: A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels wasn’t my cup of tea. I liked it best when Isabel recounted her memories. Unfortunately for me, Isabel’s narrative was often interrupted by general information pages and information of her ancestral......more