The Dissident

Description

From the award-winning author of Lucky Girls comes an intricately woven novel about secrets, love, art, identity and the shining chaos of everyday American life. Yuan Zho, a celebrated Chinese performance artist and political dissident, has accepted a one year's artist's residency in Los Angeles. He is to be a Visiting Scholar at the St Anselm's School for Girls, teaching advanced art, and hosted by one of the school's most devoted families: the wealthy if dysfunctional Traverses. The Traverses are too preoccupied with their own problems to pay their foreign guest much attention, and the dissident is delighted to be left alone - his past links with the radical movements give him good reason to avoid careful scrutiny. The trouble starts when he and his American hosts begin to view one another with clearer eyes.

Nell Freudenberger has traveled extensively in Asia, where she volunteered with several humanitarian organizations and taught English in Bangkok and New Delhi. Shortlisted for the Orange New Writing Prize 2005 for her short story collection, Lucky Girls, she lives in New York City.

'Freudenberger is most certainly the genuine article.' Guardian 'Freudenberger's novel unfolds into that rare thing, a work of poetics itself, a medication in art. The fact that she does it with such wit and compassion, such generosity of mind and heart, is miraculous.' The Times 'A fiercely intelligent first novel ... Lots of sharp, funny dialogue, it has something of a Lost in Translation feel.' Eve Magazine 'Written in prose as clear as birdsong, the novel grips from first to last.' Scotland on Sunday