Ghost Cities - PREORDER

Pub Date: August 25, 2026

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

"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

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?

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