Prosperous Times, Heavenly Light

*The Prosperity of Dawn* is currently the most significant novel by Malaysian Chinese author Li Tianbao. Spanning from the 1920s to the 1970s, it unveils a curtain of fate with a "sister marrying in place of her sibling," narrating the intertwined loves, hates, and familial ups and downs of Chinese sisters Yang Jinrui and Yang Yinrui, and their descendants over three generations. From this, it subtly paints the sorrowful and desolate life stories of eight women, and the cityscape of Kuala Lumpur as remembered by the author. Yinrui's engagement is called off due to smallpox, prompting Jinrui to marry into the Zhong family in her sister's stead, where she becomes the dynamic and decisive manager of the Plum Garden restaurant. Yinrui follows her to Nanyang, marrying Ah Yong, a small businessman, and the two live out different tumultuous lives, one in prosperity and the other in poverty. Meanwhile, the family's blood ties and the incessantly intertwined threads of fate become entangled in the lives of Jinrui's and Yinrui's descendants. Jinrui, wanting to escape her impoverished past, refused to return to her homeland even on her deathbed. As she pursued power and wrestled with a secret regret for Yinrui, she watched them one by one perish or leave early, ultimately living out her old age in solitude...

2019-12-01

广西师范大学出版社

264

9787559823021