Aftershock: A Novel

A lyrical, emotionally intense experience of the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, China, and the agonizing aftermath, Aftershock: A Novel is a sharp and complex novel by Zhang Ling, translated by Shelly Bryant.

When disaster strikes the city of Tangshan, hundreds of thousands are affected, struggling to survive the aftermath. Amidst it all, a mother faces an impossible choice, a decision that devastates everyone in its wake. Thirty years later, a betrayed daughter, with her life crumbling around her, follows her trauma back to its source, chasing down the echoes of wounds, to seek the healing and reconciliation that she’s been chasing ever since that disastrous night.

This is a much less brutal story than another Zhang Ling novel, Where Waters Meet, but no less beautiful or heartbreaking. Mothers and daughters and their complex relationships, the complexity of deep family wounds, and the collective experience of cultural trauma crosses cultural boundaries and explores the depths of the human experience. It’s a story of being knocked down following a disaster and how different types of people get up again. Aftershock is a beautifully executed novel, with distinct characters that readers are not soon to forget.