Their Divine Fires

Chen debuts with a poignant saga of a Chinese family’s heartbreak and loss over nearly a century. In 1927, Yunghong Zhang, the daughter of a doctor in rural southern China, marries Haiyang, the son of a local lord. Soon thereafter, her happiness is cut short when her two older brothers participate in the peasant revolution, resulting in Haiyang’s death during a raid on his family’s house. Yunghong, pregnant with Haiyang’s daughter, returns to her family, who raise her daughter, Yuexin, as the child of a distant cousin, futilely hoping Yunghong will marry again. At school Yuexin is called a “bastard” by her classmates, and after Yunghong tells Yuexin the truth about her origins, she resents her mother for keeping them a secret. During the Cultural Revolution, Yuexin gives birth to twins Hongxing, who becomes an actress, and Yonghong, whose first love dies after being assigned grueling farm work by the government. In the 1990s, Yonghong moves to Boston and has a daughter while Hongxing unhappily stays in China, where in 2018 she’s persecuted after falling in love with a woman. Chen’s sprawling narrative provides a wrenching window onto the ways in which a family is torn apart by political upheaval. This will move readers. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (May)