Forbidden City is a historical fiction novel written by American author Vanessa Hua. She is an award-winning journalist and fiction writer born in California. Hua is the author of the short story collection Deceit and Other Possibilities and A River of Stars. She is also a contributing editor to the literary magazine ZYZZYVA, and a regular contributor to The Atlantic, San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications.
The novel opens in 1976 as Mei watches the celebrations of Mao's death from San Francisco remembering her time with the leader when she was a teenager. In 1965, Mei is recruited by Mao to be part of his inner circle, and she is taken from her remote village to his home in Shanghai. Initially, she is appalled by the role of being his personal mistress, but her feelings soon change to love. Mao's Great Leap Forward and the resulting famine caused his popularity to plummet, so he plots to shift the favor back to him by stirring up unrest in the universities. Mei facilitates this, and the student uprising becomes the Cultural Revolution. It is a story of the interplay between personal and political power. Mei is a victim of oppressive political propaganda, but at the same time, she is a young woman trying to make sense of her world.
