The Painter from Shanghai

The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein is the story of famed Chinese artist Pan Yuliang. If the book was fiction (it is a fictionalized biography), it would be impossible to believe that it's true. Yuliang was sold into a brothel at the age of 14 by her opium-addict uncle. The girl initially believed that she was going to do embroidery to support the family. Trained by the brothel's top girl, she shuts down her emotions in order to deal with daily degradations. At seventeen, she meets a Republican official, Pan Zanhua, who quickly makes her his concubine, and eventually second wife. Zanhua supports her interest in art and allows her to enter art school, even when it endangers his position with the government. Yuliang continues to keep her emotions hidden and only allows them to show through her artwork, many of which are self-portrait nudes. Yuliang's story takes place on the sweeping canvas of Chinese civil war and the Japanese invasion. As as her home country tries to determine its new identity (making the book very timely), Yuliang has to determine her own as well. Epstein tackles this amazing story deftly and with compassion, Yuliang suffered much, torn between art and love and was deeply scarred by the sexual abuse she faced for three years. Many artists have faced hunger and poverty, but Yuliang faced so much more, the reader can't help but be awed by the obstacles she faced and overcame, including the destruction of an entire exhibition by anti-Communist forces. The book is well-written and compelling.