Tiananmen Square

‘A remarkable autobiographical novel …. intimate as well as epic, turning her book from a key testimony of a historic tragedy into a work of finely wrought fiction … she got it perfect first time’ Sunday Times

‘In a work of fiction that feels like a memoir, Tiananmen Square is a beautiful and devastating read … I can’t stop thinking about it’ - Prudence Wade, Irish News

'Captivating … an utterly gripping book, and a must for prize shortlists' - Leyla Sanai, TheSpectator

'An extraordinary book. Truly important' - William Boyd

‘A touching story of Tiananmen memory, just like a fireside whisper with love and tears. Lai Wen is a brilliant storyteller’ - Xinran

‘Acute and intimate’ - Bookseller

‘This tender, autobiographical coming-of-age tale … poignant and powerful’ - Daily Mail

'Tiananmen Square is a deeply humane account of a horrific act of state violence that the Chinese authorities have attempted to erase from history. As well as being a compelling coming-of-age tale, it’s a powerful act of remembrance' - Lucy Popescu, Financial Times

‘Remarkable … exquisite coming-of-age novel … Wen displays the same patience, precision and calm intelligence as Ferrante as she stitches together her tapestry of female relationships, falling in love and coming into political awareness … Her beautifully impassioned book lets you feel how that extraordinary historic moment was made up of thousands upon thousands of ordinary people just like her. It is one of the many achievements of this outstanding work’ - Robert Collins, Sunday Times

'Intimate yet epic ... fantastic coming-of-age novel ... powerful and harrowing' - Sunday Times, Best Summer Reads

'Tiananmen Square, with its lush melancholy, will be praised. It provides an understanding of China during a crucial period, through which one can start exploring the dazzling, distressing, but frequently humorous array that is that country’s literature and history’ - Mei Chin, Irish Times

‘Wen speaks to what’s universal within us all … I still feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise as I think of how Wen takes the book to completion, creating one of the most powerful, unforgettable, endings in 21st century fiction’ - Alastair Mabbott, The Herald

'Friendship, family secrets, young love, and loss mingle with political activism in desperate times in Lai Wen’s brilliant Tiananmen Square, a novel that reveals truths about the past, a lens through which to view the present, and a warning shot for the future. Wen carries the weight of this pivotal point in history with astonishing grace and finesse' - Meg Waite Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris and The Last Train to London

'Incredibly powerful and moving … feels like a love letter to innocence, to hope, to freedom … An eloquent and penetrating coming-of-age novel’ - LoveReading, Star Book Award

'Debut author Lai (a necessary pseudonym, given Beijing’s continued hostility to critics of the 1989 crackdown) writes with candor and vulnerability as personal and social anxieties blur into political unrest. In its unabashed affection for twentieth-century classics, this tale also reminds us that literature remains a vital means of resistance to anti-democratic forces' - Booklist Starred Review

'An attempt to remember an adolescence before the author begins to forget … “There is no benefit to remembering, so why bother?” Tiananmen Square offers one simple answer: because it happened, because we were there' - Rebecca F. Kuang