The Chinese Lady (A Novel)
| Expected release date is Sep 8th 2026 |
- Availability: Confirm prior to ordering
- Branding: minimum 50 pieces (add’l costs below)
- Check Freight Rates (branded products only)
Branding Options (v), Availability & Lead Times
- 1-Color Imprint: $2.00 ea.
- Promo-Page Insert: $2.50 ea. (full-color printed, single-sided page)
- Belly-Band Wrap: $2.50 ea. (full-color printed)
- Set-Up Charge: $45 per decoration
- Availability: Product availability changes daily, so please confirm your quantity is available prior to placing an order.
- Branded Products: allow 10 business days from proof approval for production. Branding options may be limited or unavailable based on product design or cover artwork.
- Unbranded Products: allow 3-5 business days for shipping. All Unbranded items receive FREE ground shipping in the US. Inquire for international shipping.
- RETURNS/CANCELLATIONS: All orders, branded or unbranded, are NON-CANCELLABLE and NON-RETURNABLE once a purchase order has been received.
Product Details
Overview
As rich in detail and emotion as Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Lisa See's Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, but with an exciting structure that reinvents the genre, Bo Wang’s gorgeous and immersive debut historical novel immortalizes the life of the first Chinese woman to be brought to the United States in the 1800s.
Little Sparrow, Julia, Afong Moy, Madame Moy, The Chinese Lady, were her many names . . . but her true name has been lost to time.
In 1834 Afong Moy was brought to New York by two merchants as a live exhibit. Rising to fame as the first Chinese female in the United States, she became an oddity among curios as Americans marveled at the opportunity to observe her astonishing little feet, broken and bound to resemble lotuses.
As the story moves from 1820s Canton to P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, to Gold Rush San Francisco, three women introduce us to her many names. Her mother calls her Little Sparrow and sells her to a captain who sails her to New York. The captain’s wife names her Julia and “graciously” treats her as her own. And when she is shunted off to P.T Barnum, her fellow human exhibitions call her China. Eventually arriving in San Francisco's Chinatown, she will at long last claim her name and her own story.
Combining archival research and brilliantly imaginative storytelling, Bo Wang masterfully fills in history’s gaps to weave a powerful narrative of survival in the face of hardship, tragedy, and betrayal. Told through the eyes of those around her; mirroring her life as an object on display, until we finally see the world through her own eyes.
