Timothy Mo’s sweeping historical novel is set on the China coast in the 1830s, before and during the 19th-century Opium Wars.
Adolph Ng, an effete, Canadian-educated hotel owner of Chinese origin, leads a placid existence on Danu, the eastern half of an island to the north of Australia.
He and his companions - the fiery and radical Rosa Soares, the quiet but formidable Dr Maria Nolasco da Silva, the clever but dissatisfied Raoul Garcia, and the dignified ex-seminarian Martinho Oliveira - meet in the cafes and bars to trade salacious gossip and forge the policies of FAKOUM, the government of their newly-independent homeland.
Timothy Mo
About the Author
Timothy Peter Mo was born in Hong Kong. Three of his novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.Other nominated books by Timothy Mo
Timothy Mo’s deft portrayal of London’s Chinatown in the 1960s, where a thriving community lives by its own precise and violent rules.