Chenxi and the Foreigner is set in China in 1989, in the weeks before the Tiananmen Square protests. It tells the story of Anna, an eighteen-year-old Melbourne girl, who is visiting her father in Shanghai and taking classes in Chinese painting. There, she falls in love with Chenxi, who is also a painter and engages in counter-revolutionary activities.I found this to be an incredibly interesting novel. Very few Young Adult books are set in China (even though a fifth of the world’s population lives there), and the way it is described – the people, the places, the customs – seems brutally honest. The setting is very central to this novel, especially because Anna is new to the country, and all of it was compellingly real.
All of the interactions between the characters were particularly believable – the dialogue convincingly real, and each character unique and genuine. Everything seemed like something that could have occurred in real life, and nothing was held back. Chenxi and the Foreigner was to me a really authentic novel.
Anna was a frustrating character. She was stubborn. She was naive. An otherwise fantastic novel, but Anna was a bit of a downer. HOWEVER Anna is a sheltered girl from an affluent country, and her reactions to things, her behaviours and her naivety are all reflective of the way she’s been raised, and what a fish out of water she is in China. There’s no other way she could have been written, and she’s very true-to-life.
One thing disappointed me. It was the ending – not that it was unsatisfactory, but that it was so brief. It was a truly wonderful novel, and I really felt like the ending could have been expanded more, to give it a deserved finished. Apart from the ending, it was a very satisfying and beautifully written novel.
Overall, Chenxi and the Foreigner is a really brilliant book, which packs so much to think about. This is a novel that will really appeal to teenagers who are interested in foreign culture, and books with a bit of substance. I think it’s also a novel that will have a lot of crossover appeal, so adults should check it out as well.
The Chenxi and the Foreigner blog tour finishes tomorrow at Into The Wardrobe.
10 notes passed:
I saw this book on another blog like two minutes ago. Maybe it's a sign... :}
BTW, you been BITTEN! Happy Zombie Appreciation Week!
Hey, great review! Can't wait to get to this book.
Too bad more YA novels aren't set in China, it's a fascinating country.
Excellent review, glad to hear the dialogue isn't contrived.
Great review, Steph. And I find it fascinating how in the North American edition I read Anna is American and from San Francisco!
You should try the original version. A library should have a copy. It has a different ending.
Thanks for the great review and interview, Steph - I will definitely continue to follow your blog, it's fantastic.
Mandy, Zombie Girrrl, hope you like the book!
Hi Tarie and Anonymous, yes the three versions published so far are quite different. In the first version the ending is quite different and in the North American edition, the publishers there believed it would appeal to American teenagers more if the main character was from the US, not Australia. I was also asked to write an introduction for the North American edition to give the readers some context to the Chinese politics.
It would be really interesting to know if this happens regularly for foreign editions of an author's work - we know that covers change, but do we know how much has changed inside? I wouldn't know the answer to this, as this is my first novel to be re-published and then published overseas. You might have more of an idea of this, Steph - or Tarie? Do you get to see various editions of novels that publishers send you?
I'd also be really interested to know how readers feel about this? When my book was re-published in Australia, in our early meetings my new publishers contemplated giving it a new title, but at first I thought that this could be misleading. I would hate someone to feel that they had been 'tricked' into buying what is essentially the same book twice. But then we ended up changing it quite significantly, so perhaps it could have done with another title? Who knows? I guess you just make the decisions that seem the best at the time. :-)
Hi, Sally! :o) I can give two examples: Mousehunter by Alex Milway and Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi.
Mousehunter was originally published in the UK and then was published in the US early this year. I heard from the author that aside from changing the cover, the US edition of Mousehunter is also "less violent." I wasn't able to ask why though. I also assume that the US editors changed the language so that American English was used instead of British English. The UK edition is what is available in the Philippines, which is unusual as we usually get the US editions of books.
Moribito was originally published in Japan, and now has an American publisher. The American editor, Cheryl Klein, explained on her blog that aside from having the text translated to English by Cathy Hirano, she and Cathy removed some parts of the text that Americans would not be able to understand because of cultural differences. But they made sure that taking out these parts did not affect plot or characterization, etc. One specific example she gave was a scene were Balsa, one of the main characters, takes a bath indoors in a bathhouse, then promptly takes another bath outdoors in a hot pool in a garden. This is normal behavior in Japan, but it would seem odd to an American reader. Plus, this scene did not add to the plot or characterization or any other important element in the novel.
Thanks for this Tarie, they are interesting examples, particularly the cultural changes made. I often wonder if adults underestimate American teenagers. I am sure that most young readers in the US are able to understand that things happen differently in different countries? Isn't that one of the reasons why we read? To learn about people who are different to ourselves?
Thanks Steph!
Great Review! And I really appreciate the insights that the author shares here! Thanks all :)
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