Ghost Cities: 'As beautiful as it is honest as it is funny' Guardian
Siang Lu
Aug 2026 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Keith Brockett
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10 hr 3 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
An award-winning novel from an international rising star – spanning ancient and modern China – in the dazzlingly inventive style of Haruki Murakami and Kaliane Bradley
'Lu has a brilliant mind for style, language, pace and ideas, and this is a funny and fascinating book that I can’t wait to read again and again.’ Guardian
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 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, US National Book Award-winning author of Interior Chinatown
'Lu has a brilliant mind for style, language, pace and ideas, and this is a funny and fascinating book that I can’t wait to read again and again.’ Guardian
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 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, US National Book Award-winning author of Interior Chinatown
An award-winning novel from an international rising star – spanning ancient and modern China – in the dazzlingly inventive style of Haruki Murakami and Kaliane Bradley
'Lu has a brilliant mind for style, language, pace and ideas, and this is a funny and fascinating book that I can’t wait to read...
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About the author
Siang Lu is the Miles Franklin–winning author of Ghost Cities and ABIA-winning author of The Whitewash. He is the co-creator of The Beige Index and the creator of #sillybookstagram. Ghost Cities was shortlisted for eight additional awards, including the ALS Gold Medal, The Voss Literary Prize and The Age Book of the Year. In 2026, Ghost Cities will be published with Simon & Schuster’s Summit UK and US imprints, and in 26 territories in translation thereafter. Siang is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Siang Lu is the Miles Franklin–winning author of Ghost Cities and ABIA-winning author of The Whitewash. He is the co-creator of The Beige Index and the creator of #sillybookstagram. Ghost Cities was shortlisted for eight additional awards, including the ALS Gold Medal, The Voss Literary Prize and...
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