New York resident and author, Flora Qian was born and raised in Shanghai but has lived in Singapore and Hong Kong, where her ancestors had lived, and in Washington D.C. before settling in New York. This cross cultural and multilingual experience influenced her debut novel, "South fo the Yangtze."

At once a coming-of-age-story and a meditation on language itself, South of the Yangtze is Flora Qian's award-winning debut novel that follows Yinan Qian, a girl growing up in Shanghai at the turn of the century.