A Map of Betrayal
  • Published: 15 July 2015
  • ISBN: 9780804170369
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $34.00

A Map of Betrayal

A Novel

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From the award-winning author of Waiting: a subtle, haunting tale of espionage and conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries--China and the United States--and two families.

A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year

Lilian Shang, a history professor in Maryland, knew that her father, Gary, had been the most important Chinese spy ever caught in the United States. But when she discovers his diary after the death of her parents, its pages reveal the full pain and longing that his double life entailed—and point to a hidden second family that he’d left behind in China.
        As Lilian follows her father’s trail back into the Chinese provinces, she begins to grasp the extent of her father’s dilemma—torn between loyalty to his motherland and the love he came to feel for his adopted country. As she starts to understand that Gary, too, had been betrayed, she finds that it is up to her to prevent his tragedy from endangering yet another generation of the Shangs. A stunning portrait of a multinational family, an unflinching inquiry into the meaning of patriotism, A Map of Betrayal is a spy novel that only Ha Jin could write.
  • Published: 15 July 2015
  • ISBN: 9780804170369
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $34.00
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About the author

Ha Jin

Ha Jin left his native China in 1985 for the USA. He is the author of six novels, including Waiting – winner of the 1999 National Book Award for Fiction, and the 2000 PEN/ Faulkner Award – In the Pond, The Crazed and his latest, Nanjing Requiem. He has also published four collections of stories and four volumes of poetry. He lives near Boston and teaches at Boston University

Also by Ha Jin

The Boat Rocker
The Woman Back from Moscow: In Pursuit of Beauty
A Song Everlasting
The Banished Immortal
The Boat Rocker - A Novel
Nanjing Requiem
A Good Fall
See all

Praise for A Map of Betrayal

  • "A subtle page-turner.... A startling thriller about a double agent whose carefully regimented life falls apart as soon as his cover gets blown.... A moving family saga." --Entertainment Weekly
  • "Ha Jin has captured the painful, often humdrum essence of the hidden agent.... We see America through the eyes of a Chinese émigré, torn between an old loyalty and growing affection for the adopted land he is betraying.... [Ha Jin] is a voice at once outside and inside the culture." --The New York Times Book Review
  • "An innovative twist on an immigrant novel, exploring themes of identity, assimilation and confused loyalties through the high-stakes narrative of a spy novel... . A poignant novel that portrays the emotional drama of an immigrant torn apart by conflicting loyalties and 'bone-deep loneliness'.... [Gary's] tragedy is relatable, almost simple. It should strike many close to home." --Los Angeles Times