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A Single Swallow

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A Single Swallow

By: Zhang Ling, Shelly Bryant - translator
Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Adam Verner, Feodor Chin, Tanya Eby, Christopher Lane
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About this listen

The eagerly awaited English translation of award-winning author Zhang Ling’s epic and intimate novel about the devastation of war, forgiveness, redemption, and the enduring power of love.

On the day of the historic 1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast - in which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces, bringing an end to World War II - three men, flush with jubilation, made a pact. After their deaths, each year on the anniversary of the broadcast, their souls would return to the Chinese village of their younger days. It’s where they had fought - and survived - a war that shook the world and changed their own lives in unimaginable ways. Now, seventy years later, the pledge is being fulfilled by American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu.

All that’s missing is Ah Yan - also known as Swallow - the girl each man loved, each in his own profound way.

As they unravel their personal stories of the war, and of the woman who touched them so deeply during that unforgiving time, the story of Ah Yan’s life begins to take shape, woven into view by their memories. A woman who had suffered unspeakable atrocities, and yet found the grace and dignity to survive, she’d been the one to bring them together. And it is her spark of humanity, still burning brightly, that gives these ghosts of the past the courage to look back on everything they endured and remember the woman they lost.

©2017 Zhang Ling. Translation © 2020 by Shelly Bryant. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
20th Century Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Fiction War China Imperial Japan Chinese Historical Fiction

Critic Reviews

“An ensemble of five gifted narrators splendidly conveys the haunting language and imagery in this WWII story.” AudioFile Magazine

“[A] unique premise of ghostly rendezvous among soldiers, combined with first loves for all three men…Clever use of newspaper accounts, military reports, and letters to loved ones advance the plot and complement the dialogue effectively and interestingly…superb…highly recommended.” —Historical Novel Society

“Zhang Ling helps the reader see events through a distinctly Chinese perspective in which characters speak from the after-life and natural objects have human agency. A thought-provoking work of fiction.” —KATU-TV (Portland, OR)

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