China & Taiwan
China
Dragonfly Eyes
By Cao Wenxuan, Helen Wang (Translator)
Dragonfly Eyes. Cao Wenxuan. Translated by Helen Wang. Candlewick, 2022. Originally published in China by by Phoenix Juvenile and Children’s Publishing and then released by Candlewick sister company Walker Books in the UK in 2021. ISBN 9781536200188. 384 p. (Ages 9-12.) Fiction.
A Batchelder honor book, this is the second novel of prolific Chinese author Cao Wenxuan to be translated into English, following his receipt of the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award. A more direct encounter with the turbulence of Chinese history than that presented in Bronze and Sunflower, it is a multi-generational saga of a mixed Chinese and French family in Shanghai from the 1920s to the 1960s, as they weather the Japanese invasion, the Communist takeover and the Cultural Revolution. [dj]