The House of Exile (Classic Reprint)

A memoir of daily life, memory, and bridge-building across oceans
This nonfiction narrative follows a Chinese family and the people who shape their quiet, enduring world. Set in a centuries-old courtyard, it blends intimate family moments with stories that span ships, ports, and exchanges with the outside world. You’ll glimpse rituals, legends, and lessons passed from one generation to the next, rooted in a long history and a hopeful look toward future connections.

Written as a first-hand account of a family’s life, the book centers on everyday events—gatherings in the shade, readings from the classics, and the small acts that build trust across cultures. It invites readers into the Ancestral Hall, the courtyards, and the stories that have sustained a household through many changes.

• Experience family life told through scenes of study, storytelling, and shared meals


• Encounter historical vignettes about China’s past and its contact with Western traders


• Meet elders, uncles, and children who keep tradition alive while facing new possibilities


• Discover how memory and documents shape a family’s sense of identity

Ideal for readers who enjoy intimate memoirs, cultural history, and portraits of daily life that illuminate a wider world.

A bestseller when first published in 1933, this tale of an American woman in China has been reprinted here along with five chapters of an unpublished sequel. Waln's simple, graceful prose and sensitive powers of observation stand up well after 60 years, though she analyzes culture in greater depth than she does politics. Born into a family of traders, Waln from childhood dreamed of visiting China, and in 1920 she journeyed there, living as a virtual adopted daughter of the wealthy Lin family in their North China homestead, known as the "House of Exile." She offers detailed descriptions of daily life, the rhythms of the farm and the history of Chinese marriage. After she weds an Englishman, Waln supervises her household and corresponds with her Chinese "mother" (their formal yet warm letters are reproduced here). Waln went on to write articles about China and to follow the rise of the Chinese Nationalists; she expresses sympathy for Chinese who fear foreigners as well as for those who fear other Chinese. After some 15 years in the West, Waln returned to China in 1947 to begin a sequel, and the surviving chapters hint at an intimate tale of the country's traumas, such as the story of a lute player found guilty of heresy by a Communist people's court. Illustrations.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.