李海

Thirty Years of Sunsets

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When Li Na receives an unfamiliar jade hairpin and a one-way ticket to Suzhou at her mother's funeral, she thinks it is just the final expression of her immigrant mother's nostalgia. But when she arrives in the ancient city of canals and opens her mother's wooden box, sealed for thirty years, she discovers a secret that could overturn her entire life. Her mother, Wei Lin, was not the composed, pragmatic businesswoman she knew, but rather a woman who, in 1990s Suzhou, had fallen passionately in love with a young poet named Jian. They had planned to elope, to spend their lives together—until lies tore them apart. Lin's family forged letters to make her believe Jian had given up on her, while Jian's family made him believe Lin had chosen a U.S. visa over their love. Thirty years have passed. Jian still waits by that promised bridge at sunset. And Li Na discovers she is not merely a witness to this tragedy—she is its living legacy. This is a story about how lies can destroy a lifetime, how waiting can become an act of faith, and how a daughter must travel across two continents and two generations of secrets to find the man who is still waiting—her father. As Suzhou's canals continue to flow, as a letter finally arrives thirty years late, three decades of sunsets will converge into a long-delayed reunion, or an eternal farewell.

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