Press Release | Unbound: A Tale of Love and Betrayal in Shanghai
Unbound:
A Tale of Love and Betrayal in Shanghai
By Dina Gu Brumfield
NEW FAMILY SAGA BRINGS READERS
THROUGH
A MULTI-GENERATIONAL NOVEL IN CHINA NAVIGATING
LOVE, FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, AND
RESILENCE
"Brumfield’s
debut is a complex story that highlights the struggles between classes as well
as racist practices against the Chinese by imperialist foreigners in their own
country.”
– Booklist
Women have to go to
extraordinary lengths to survive and find love, a life for themselves, and to
create opportunities for their own self-expression. Unbound is about survival and what women sacrifice and endure to
pursue love and a future of their own making.
When author Dina Gu
Brumfield first came to the Unites States in the late ‘80s from China, she left
a restrictive communist culture, in which people—especially children—were fed a
communist ideology that enabled one party to exercise power over. It is also a culture deeply rooted in
submissive and traditional expectations. She re-educated (a word used by
communist in China back then) herself to see things from very different perspectives.
Using her newfound understanding
and knowledge, Dina Gu Brumfield pens her debut novel, Unbound: A Tale of Love and
Betrayal in Shanghai [Greenleaf Book Group, August 2020]. A sweeping,
multigenerational story of two iron-willed women—a grandmother and
granddaughter—set in a richly textured, turbulent portrait of the city
of Shanghai in the twentieth century, where everyone must fight to carve out a
place for themselves amid political upheaval and the turmoil of war.
Mini Pao lives with her
sister and parents in a pre-war Shanghai divided among foreign occupiers and
Chinese citizens, a city known as the Paris of the East with its contrast of vibrant
night life and repressive social mores. Already considered an old maid at
twenty-three, Mini boldly rejects the path set out for her as she struggles to
provide for her family and reckons with her desire for romance and autonomy.
Mini’s story of love, betrayal, and determination unfolds in the Western-style
cafes, open-air markets, and jazz-soaked nightclubs of Shanghai—the same city
where, decades later, her granddaughter Ting embarks on her own journey toward
independence.
Ting Lee has grown up
behind an iron curtain in a time of scarcity, humility, and forced-sameness in accordance
with the structures of Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution. As a result, Ting’s
imagination burns with curiosity about fashion, America, and most of all, her long-lost
grandmother Mini’s glamorous past and mysterious present. Driven by her growing
thirst for knowledge about the world beyond 1970s Shanghai, Ting uncovers her family’s
tragic past and face the difficult truth of what the future holds for her if
she remains in China.
“Freedom is a word we
too easily throw around. It’s an abstraction usually tied to such things as the
right to vote and the right to say what you want without risk of being thrown
in jail,” Brumfield says. “But if you’ve lived in an autocratic society, you
realize it is so much more than that. Unbound gets at the human
dimension of freedom. As with Mini, Ting and the other characters, we all yearn
for self-expression, and the freedom to choose how we live and love.”
Through the pages of Unbound,
Brumfield explores resilience and personal determination in the face of tragedy
and heartbreak.
This captivating read
features strong independent women who risk everything
to break free from their visible and invisible bounds in an effort to seek a
life that is true to themselves. Unbound also
touches on:
·
#OwnVoices storytelling loosely based on author’s life and
experiences being born and raised in Shanghai, China
·
Bringing to life the stark difference between 1930s and 1980s
Shanghai, and how circumstances and societal expectations impacted the choices
available to a young woman in those times
·
Using fiction to explore, through the characters’ eyes, the search
for personal self-expression in China during turbulent times of cultural
conflict, war, and communist rule
·
The human dimension of what freedom truly means
·
Resilience and the will to survive
“I lived through what Ting, the main
character in Unbound, experiences,”
shares Brumfield. “It’s a uniquely
intimate account of what young women faced in Shanghai during quarrelsome times..”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dina
Gu Brumfield was born and raised in Shanghai, China. She came to the United
States to join her family as a young adult in late ‘80s. After earning her MBA,
she worked as a consultant in New York and at various Silicon Valley companies.
It took her 10 years to write and publish Unbound,
as English is her second language – a true accomplishment and feat.
Unbound:
A Tale of Love and Betrayal in Shanghai will be available on Amazon and through all major
booksellers on August 4, 2020. For more information, visit DinaBrumfield.com.
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