The Story of Juanjin

Single mother Juanjin has great hopes when a sewing factory opens in her remote Chinese village but chances to improve her lot turn into unforeseen challenges. When the line of strange holiday items the factory produces is switched for dolls' costumes, both her perceptions of the west, and her plans for escape change. However, grasping at that dream creates spiritual and even existential uncertainty for her and her family.

Western readers are drawn into a world that at first seems foreign but soon becomes populated with characters and situations that are strikingly familiar to mothers, daughters and those who take the same path to work day after day, and year after year.