Every novel by this author is something fundamentally new—skillful and mesmerizing prose.
From the 2017 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature. “When We Were Orphans” is an exquisite novel that paradoxically combines the traditions of the “black detective” of the 1930s and “cultural prose” of the late 20th and early 21st century. The well-known detective and intellectual Christopher Banks has dreamed since childhood of uncovering the mystery of the disappearance of his parents—and finally, in a very troubled time, he gets the chance to do it by traveling along the London—Shanghai route. But Christopher’s investigation and his exotic journey gradually turn into a journey from the Present to the Past, from a world of illusions to the world of harsh reality.