The Language of Solitude: A Novel (2) (The Rising Dragon Series)

Internationally bestselling author Jan-Philipp Sendker’s Whispering Shadows was “a darkly beautiful, heart-wrenching” (Booklist, starred review) journey through bustling Hong Kong’s sinister underbelly. The captivating second book in the high-stakes Rising Dragon series plunges us deeper into the dangerous heart of Chinese politics.

Brooding expat and journalist Paul Leibovitz is beginning to imagine a new life for himself in Hong Kong, one in which the grief over a recent family tragedy doesn’t consume him and his love for Christine Wu brings him great joy. When Christine gets an unexpected and emotionally-charged letter from her estranged brother, Paul journeys with her to a remote village outside of Shanghai, where a mysterious illness is affecting the locals.

Paul discovers a powerful chemical conglomerate is polluting a nearby lake, and Chinese officials are doing nothing to stop it. The victims demand justice, but taking legal action could prove even more dangerous than the strange disease itself. Government intimidation and political corruption threaten to suppress even the most passionate and audacious environmental activists. If Paul doesn’t walk away, he could pull the woman he loves reluctantly back into a world she escaped from decades ago—putting their relationship and their lives at risk.

Suspenseful and rife with the page-turning storytelling that defines Sendker’s remarkable work and harkens back to The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, The Language of Solitude offers a peerless look into contemporary China.

Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Wall, a nonfiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, his first novel, was an international bestseller. He lives in Berlin with his family.