Harare Review of Books

384 pp. Published March 4, 2025 by House of Anansi. Fiction.

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I’ve recently been learning a lot more about China’s 20th century history, and the reason is this excellent novel, as well as another recent one, Soft Burial x Fang Fang, Michael Berry (tr.). They’re both about damaged people, and deal with similar themes: the effects of large political events on ordinary people. Fiction provides a great introduction to history through making such large events real for readers in making us care about their effect on individual characters. I find that that kind of novel always leads me to research more about the time and place it’s set in—which is why I’ve been reading up so much on China lately.

In this affecting and complicated story, a mother and daughter grapple with the fallout of the Cultural Revolution, and the with generational trauma. The women of this novel wrestle with mental illness—the mother, Lemei, as a direct result of a particularly traumatic event, and the child, Lin, as a secondary victim due to her mother’s resultant neuroses. Because of her struggles, Lemei displaces her disillusionment into an almost fanatical drive to make her daughter migrate to the US—away from China and its policies. What she doesn’t realise as she makes her child speak mostly English and become disconnected from her identity is that she has caused Lin to internalise feelings of racial inferiority, which come to the fore when she finally moves to the US for university.

I found it interesting how Chang works to balance the personal (for the characters) and historical strands of the novel. She doesn’t go too much into the facts of history, nor overtly make judgements on it—but only insofar as those events impact particularly on Lemei. She also tries to contrast Lemei’s and Lin’s views with alternate views from other, more patriotic characters. It feels like Chang takes care not to offend with this story, but it’s not really clear who or what needs protection in this case—the victims, or the image of the State.

The Immortal Woman is a complex intervention telling the story of the impact of huge national events on small lives, the personal crisis from feelings of disillusionment after nationalism, and also the push-and-pull of migration. What comes through clearly is that historical events are always personal, and their impacts generational. This is a memorable novel that will, as all “world” literature will do even when it doesn’t set out to, expand your view of the world.

Many thanks to House of Anansi for a review copy.

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