Ghost Cities: A Novel by Siang Lu (Hardcover) (PREORDER)

Fiction - Literary - Absurdist - Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology

RELEASE DATE: 8/25/2026 (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE)

From an award-winning international rising star, a dazzlingly inventive novel, spanning ancient and modern China, that interweaves stories of romance and showbiz

Inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China, Ghost Cities follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney's Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn't speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. The incident goes viral under the hashtag #BadChinese and attracts the attention of the eccentric film director Baby Bao, who uses Lu to attract press for his latest film. Bao’s movie, based on ancient legends, is to be filmed in one of China’s “ghost cities”.

How is his relocation to a ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient Emperor creates a thousand doubles of Himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess-playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known Empire is destroyed—then recreated, page by page and book by book—all in the name of love and art?

AUTHOR BIO: 

Siang Lu is the Miles Franklin-winning author of Ghost Cities and the ABIA-winning The Whitewash, the co-creator of The Beige Index and the creator of #sillybookstagram. Siang is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"Moving and deeply funny--a captivating exploration of how our drive to create can lead to both heartbreaking beauty and cruel destruction. Lu reminds us that broken things are sometimes in their perfect form." --Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Hole in the Sky

"I was mesmerised the moment I opened this book." --Bora Chung, National Book Award finalist and International Booker shortlisted author of Cursed Bunny

"Ingenious in its construction, Siang Lu layers myth and reality into a marvelous structure. This is bold, inventive storytelling, a novel full of ideas that never loses its heart." --Charles Yu, National Book Award-winning author of Interior Chinatown

"Kaleidoscopically erudite, inexhaustibly lyrical, moving, and fabulously funny. There are immortal sages, concubines, eunuchs, moonlit pagodas, assassins, chess, Bentley limousines, psychedelic whiskey, the cinema, crazed auteurs (hats off to Siang Lu for creating "Baby Bao," one of the great literary characters). And there's a love story. And when the iridescent effulgence of all this eases, you're left with the beautiful and elemental image of the solitary Writer, secluded in that hidden room at the center of his labyrinth, his brush "dancing on the page."" --Mark Leyner, author of The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

"What a pleasure to follow Siang Lu into his labyrinthine Ghost Cities. An instant Australian classic that stands both on the shoulders of giants and yet is somehow completely and delightfully new. I want to crumple this novel into a ball and swallow it, whole." --Hayley Scrivenor, author of Girl Fallin

"Poignant...satisfying....I was blown away by Ghost Cities." --Charlie Jane Anders

"Clever...readers will find plenty to feast on." --Publishers Weekly

"Lu's genre-bending novel unfolds like a metropolis itself--sprawling, imaginative, and at times overwhelming. At the risk of carrying too much, Ghost Cities offers everything readers could ask for--historical drama, modern romance, satire-infused dystopia, a reckoning with one's identity. A quirky, complicated novel for those who like a challenge." --Allison Cho, Booklist