Forbidden City

“An intriguing and suspenseful story. In real life, Vanessa Hua was born in California to people who fled China. She became a journalist, exploring China and filing reports from her ancestral land. In fiction, she tells of a girl who becomes a lover and worshipper of Chairman Mao, plotting revolution after revolution. How to negotiate the maze of the Forbidden City? How to escape?“

—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of Girlhood Among Ghosts

“Vanessa Hua has written a grand, cinematic and captivating novel. With robust and compassionate imagination, Hua brings to life a heroine who has been relegated to the dustbins of history. Forbidden City is both a passionate feminist recreation of Mei, Mao's lover and a meditation on how power corrodes human judgment.”

—Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings

“Forbidden City is a wonderful novel, immersive and fascinating. Vanessa Hua writes with an audacious mix of intimacy and narrative sweep, about one of the most enigmatic figures and misunderstood moments in history.”

—Jess Walter, The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins

”If history is written by the victor, Vanessa Hua’s captivating second novel is an act of resistance and reclamation. Forbidden City explores questions of power, ambition, and visibility through a lens that is both clear-eyed and compassionate. As China is rocked by tumultuous cultural change, Mei’s story is a reminder of the many lives that both shape, and are lost to, the historical record. But Hua also asks us to consider a question even more provocative: How far would we go to have a stake in the narrative?”

—Chloe Benjamin, The Immortalists and The Anatomy of Dreams

“Gripping and vital, Forbidden City charts the sensual, intellectual, and moral awakening of a young woman who forges her own identity from beneath the shadow of Mao Zedong. Mei Xiang is a heroine you will not soon forget, and her story a form of redemption for those pushed to the margins of history.”

—C Pam Zhang, How Much of These Hills is Gold

"Arresting, beautiful, and epic, Vanessa Hua’s Forbidden City left me breathless by the last page. Hua’s writing is propulsive and packed with rich historical details and exquisitely crafted characters. Forbidden City is at once a sweeping political drama, a coming-of-age story, and a novel that will leave a lasting impact for readers everywhere. Mei is a character who will stay with you long after reading. "
—Lara Prescott, The Secrets We Kept

A teenage girl living in 1960s China becomes Mao Zedong's protégée and lover--and heroine of the Cultural Revolution—in this provocative, poignant novel.

On the eve of China's Cultural Revolution and her sixteenth birthday, Mei dreams of becoming a model revolutionary. When the Communist Party recruits girls for a mysterious duty in the capital, she leaps at the opportunity to escape her impoverished village. It is only when Mei arrives at the Chairman’s opulent residence—a forbidden city unto itself—that she learns that the girls’ job is to dance with the Party elites.

Ambitious and whip-smart, Mei beelines toward the Chairman. Mei gradually separates from the other recruits to become the Chairman’s confidante—and paramour. As he fends off political rivals, Mei faces down schemers from the dance troupe who will stop at nothing to take her place, as well as the Chairman’s imperious wife, who has secret plans of her own.

When the Chairman finally gives Mei a political mission, she seizes it with fervor, but the brutality of this latest stage of the revolution makes her begin to doubt all the certainties she has held so dear.

“Vanessa Hua’s meticulously researched novel brings to life a little known account of the Cultural Revolution and the politics of the women vying for the attention of its brutal leader. Mei lives in rural China, but her dreams are bigger than her small village, propelling her to jump at a chance to get closer to the centers of power. Parlaying a role as a dancer for the Communist Party’s elite into an intimate audience with Mao himself, Mei becomes an impassioned confident before discovering the cracks in the façade of this new world, and the cruelty that lurks beneath. A layered and immersive story of a young woman swept up by the currents of history only to find neither her heroes nor her aspirations were what she had presumed.”

—Luisa Smith, Book Passage

“Historical fiction is often how I learn history and Hua's novel provided me with yet another lesson in Chinese history during Chairman Mao's reign. A young girl is 'chosen' to leave her impoverished village behind and come to the Forbidden City where intrigue, seduction, power mongering and betrayal are all part of daily life and learning to discern one from the other mean survival or death. Hua's prose is lush; her research and knowledge deep; her story is captivating.”

—Gayle Shanks, Changing Hands Bookstore

“Vanessa Hua has crafted a powerful novel of tyranny and corruption as seen through the eyes of an innocent teenager privy to the inner workings of Chairman Mao's reign. Well researched, beautifully crafted, and memorable beyond belief, FORBIDDEN CITY will be revolutionizing book club discussions in Spring of 2022. THIS ONE IS HOT.”

—Pamela Klinger Horn, Valley Bookseller

“Nuanced, intimate, and immersive, FORBIDDEN CITY is a captivating yet harrowing story of a teenager who escapes her impoverished village to become Chairman Mao’s protégée and lover during China's Cultural Revolution.”

—Alyssa Raymond, Copper Dog Books

“Mei Xiang, a patriotic teenage girl, growing up in the newly Communist China, has dreams and aspirations fall above her station, especially given her gender and status. She finds a way out of her village to join Mao's personal dance troupe. While there, Mao seduces her and begins to trust her. While Mei gets wrapped up in duty and country, she begins to see that the utopia is not what it seems. And, soon it becomes what it's always been, Mei has to find a way to survive. Meticulously researched yet effortlessly told, Forbidden City depicts the forgotten voices who only seek to strive and survive during a brutal time in China's history.”

—Audrey Huang, Belmont Books

“Set in the 1960s during China's Cultural Revolution, 16-year-old Mei wields her wits and strength to seize an opportunity to escape her village and rise through the ranks to become Mao Zedong's protege and lover, and overcome dangerous missions. FORBIDDEN CITY is an astonishing propulsion through a time, a place, and a movement that is largely misunderstood, but still considered one of the most turbulent periods in China's history. Told from a unique perspective, but with a narrative that is entirely of its own. I loved it!”

—Thu Doan, East Bay Booksellers

“In a stellar example of historical fiction, Vanessa Hau portrays the turmoil and brutality of China’s Cultural Revolution in this meticulously detailed novel, narrated by 16-year-old Mei, former teenage paramour to Chairman Mao. Brash and whip-smart Mei, plucked from her village at 15 to join Mao’s troupe of dance partners, eventually immerses herself in the politics of the Revolution. It is a comfort that the story opens with Mei living in San Francisco, but the tension as she tells her story –from opulent Palace to swimming to freedom -- is nonetheless palpable.”

— Cheryl McKeon, Book House Stuyvesant Plaza

“Vanessa Hua writes with such assuredness that it's impossible not to become totally immersed in this story of a young teenage girl who leaves her impoverished village to serve Chairman Mao the Party. She quickly learns that the service requested is dancing with Party elites and sets herself apart to gain the attention of the Chairman, soon becoming his lover and confidant. This being the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Mei is drawn into service and ultimately disillusionment. Forbidden City is historical fiction at its finest: illuminating, immersive, and a propulsive read. I couldn't put it down!”

—Pat Rudesbusch, Orinda Books

FORBIDDEN CITY_Hua_cover.jpg — **Order from your favorite independent bookstore** | Orinda Books and Booksmith {signed editions} | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Amazon
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Best Books of 2022, Washington Post.

Finalist, Northern California Book Award, 2023

Judges’ note: “Spectacularly detailed and immersive…This novel shows Hua to be a master of her craft at the height of her powers.”

Joyce Carol Oates Prize, Longlist

“Hua’s provocative latest (after A River of Stars) follows a bold and shrewd woman as she navigates China’s political scene amid the Cultural Revolution. Mei Xiang is almost 16 when she trades a long-kept secret for a place in Chairman Mao’s troupe—an excellent opportunity to serve the party’s interests while escaping a dull, inevitable life filled with field work and famine. Her ambition and dreams of becoming a model revolutionary help her catch the Chairman’s eye and keep him interested long enough to incite the jealousy of the other recruits and even of his wife, long accustomed to turning a blind eye to her husband’s many indiscretions. At first, Mei relishes being the Chairman’s lover, his confidant, and even his pawn in the schemes he orchestrates to triumph over his political rivals. But eventually, she sees the deceit in their relationship and understands heroes aren’t always what they seem (“He had rewritten my history. To be everything to everyone, I’d become no one,” she reflects). Hua masterly presents Mei’s attempts to leave the Lake Palaces with their “power, secrecy, and isolation” behind as she processes her trauma. This finds a brilliant new perspective on familiar material via its story of a young woman’s brush with power. It’s magnificent.” —Starred, Publishers Weekly

“Masterful…sweeping… eye-opening, vital and timely now more than ever”—Washington Post

“By its end, Forbidden City has brought the reader into the beating heart of human history. It is literary historical fiction at its finest,” —Starred, Bookpage

“A new classic…ambitious and impressive novel”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Engrossing”— Vogue Singapore

“Original and intriguing”— AudioFile Magazine

“Hua’s research and writing deftly proves that “fiction flourishes where the official record ends.” —Booklist

“Hua’s atmospheric novel evokes the brutal 1960s regime of Chairman Mao as teenage Mei rises from poverty to sit at the ruler’s right hand, both protégé and courtesan. The arc of this morally ambiguous heroine, who embodies our unease with powerful women, traces China’s troubled journey into modernity,”—Oprah Daily

“Powerful verisimilitude,” South China Morning Post

“A fresh feminist take…intriguing,” LitHub

Most-Anticipated Spring Listens—Audible

Books of the Week, Publishers Weekly

“Striking” — Bustle

“10 Compelling Books by AAPI Authors”—AARP

“Hua’s novel is utterly original and haunting—well after the final page is turned.” —Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

“One of the most compelling works of feminist and historical fiction in recent years”—Zyzzyva

April 2022 Picks, Loan Stars

49 Books Coming Out This Spring You Won’t Be Able to Put Down, Buzzfeed

Here Are the Best New Books You Should Read in April, Time Magazine

“This well-researched book addresses a momentous period rarely covered in fiction,” Kirkus