CLAIRE CHAO, was born and raised in Hong Kong. Although unaware of it at the time, as a youth she continually sought connections to her parents’ Shanghai homeland. She spent a decade creating Remembering Shanghai after thirty years in luxury brand management. While researching her family stories, she uncovered an uncanny link with the grandfather she’d never met. She graduated with highest honors from Princeton University and was named to Avenue magazine’s “500 Most Influential Asian Americans” and Hong Kong Tatler’s “Who’s Who in Hong Kong.”
Winner of 17 literary awards including the 2019 Rubery Prize Book of the Year, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from imperial China to modern-day Hong Kong. Isabel grows up in the wealthy Sun family in glamorous 1930s Shanghai. When Mao comes to power, she journeys to Hong Kong, unaware that she will never see her father again. She returns to Shanghai with her daughter Claire six decades later to confront their complex past—one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering pleasure palaces and underworld crime bosses.