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  • Published: 4 July 2023
  • ISBN: 9781405950169
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $26.00

Four Treasures of the Sky

The compelling debut about identity and belonging in the 1880s American West




'An engulfing, bighearted and heartbreaking debut. Illuminates shocking injustices, making us stop and consider how many survive to this day' Ann Patchett

Zhifu, China, 1882.

Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for whom she was named, revered for her beauty and cursed with heartbreak. But when she is kidnapped and smuggled across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she once imagined.

Over the years that follow she is forced to reinvent herself to survive. From a calligraphy school, to a San Francisco brothel, to a shop tucked into the Idaho mountains, we follow Daiyu on a desperate quest to outrun the tragedy that chases her. As anti-Chinese sentiment sweeps across the American West in a wave of unimaginable violence, Daiyu must draw on each of the selves she has been - including the ones she most wants to leave behind - in order to finally claim her own name and story.

  • Published: 4 July 2023
  • ISBN: 9781405950169
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Jenny Tinghui Zhang

Jenny Tinghui Zhang is a Texas-based Chinese-American writer. Four Treasures of the Sky is her first novel.

Praise for Four Treasures of the Sky

An engulfing, bighearted and heartbreaking novel. Illuminates shocking injustices, making us stop and consider how many survive to this day

Ann Patchett, author of Women's Prize longlisted <i>The Dutch House</i>

A sweeping adventure of identity, love and belonging

C Pam Zhang, Man Booker longlisted author of <i>How Much of These Hills are Gold</i>

Brilliant and devastating. Four Treasures of the Sky tells the story of Daiyu, who is brought to America against her will and forced to hide who she is even as she grows into her true self. Weaving together myth and history, Zhang's work is both timeless and utterly necessary right now.

Anna North, author of the <i>New York Times</i> bestseller <i>Outlawed</i>

An instant and necessary classic, easily among the best novels of this past decade. The story lingers long after its final pages

T Kira Madden, author of <i>Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls</i>

This unforgettable novel dazzles. An exhilarating rush of character, history and storytelling

Kali Fajardo-Anstine, US National Book Award finalist author of <i>Sabrina & Corina</i>

An astonishing novel propelled by private and public histories, rich with reflections on self-making, moral calling, great love, and profound injustice

Megha Majumdar, author of <i>A Burning</i>

Brings alive a heroine for the ages, an indomitable teenage girl whose relentless spirit and self-reinvention carries this story. Daiyu is sure to take her place in the canon of great Western heroines next to True Grit's Mattie Ross

Juliet Grames, author of <i>The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna</i>

This book is haunting, luscious and precise - it's historical fiction as we most want and need it to be. Four Treasures of the Sky paints a neglected chapter in history with sharp and devastating brushstrokes

Julia Fine, author of <i>The Upstairs House</i>

A lyrical and sweeping Bildungsroman, fierce and moving

Publishers Weekly, starred review

A book to sit alongside Yaa Gyasi's Homecoming and Anna North's Outlawed, this is a powerful tale of reclamation, spun with soul by a remarkable new talent

Lauren Puckett, <i>Shelf Awareness</i>

An impressive and original debut

THE SUNDAY TIMES