?? Branches

(Please see back cover for Chinese description)

In Guangxi, China, Lihui discovered the dark secret of her birth when she was in primary school. Growing up with the secret embedded within her, accompanied by confusion and humiliation, she went to the US to finish her education, becoming an engineer and building a loving family. Little did she know that her life would be turned upside down the day her son brought back his homework assignment: My Family Tree. Little did she know that her long-buried, seemingly forgotten secret would come back to haunt her.

Branches is a masterpiece by Qian Chen, one of the foremost immigrant voices in the Chinese language. As the People’s Literature Award citation reads: “ is a novella about kindred relationships, personal development, love, and dull pain. It shows the complicated and varied forms of possession and pain present in love. Encompassing several generations of Chinese people living in different countries, presenting the fates of characters while bringing history and humanities, joy and sorrow,and flower and freak together, is a work with a worldly vision which at the same time embodies the mystical power of the Chinese language."