A decade on from her internationally acclaimed memoir Daughter of the River, bestselling Chinese author Hong Ying returns to work the fertile ground of her own past with The Good Children. By turns heart-wrenching and brave, the book explores her troubled relationship with her estranged mother. From her mother’s funeral, the author goes back and forth between past and present, through memories and anecdotes to unravel the forty years following her departure from Chongqing to Beijing and then England. Hong Ying was born into a sailor’s family and is best known in the English-speaking world for her novels: K: The Art of Love (which won the Primo de Rome in 2005), The Concubine of Shanghai, Peacock Cries and Summer of Betrayal. Visit the 2014 Manchester Literature Festival website for booking details.