About the book: 2023 / An epic debut novel set against the backdrop of a changing China after the Cultural Revolution. A novel about dreams and lives that are left behind. Yitian has been living in America for almost ten years when his mother tells him on the phone that his father left their village home and has not returned. And although Yitian has not seen his father all these years and they separated without forgiving each other for what happened many years ago, he decides to return to China. Finding himself in his native and already foreign lands, Yitian tries to restore the events of the past and at the same time understand the bureaucracy of China, impenetrable to the newcomer. The evasiveness with which the mother behaves only aggravates the situation with the search. There is only one way out: to seek help from the only person who once understood him. Hanwen is a city girl, she was born and raised in Shanghai, she dreamed of going to college and studying to become an engineer, but she, like all graduates of city schools, was “assigned” to a village where former schoolchildren should improve China’s agriculture. There she meets Yitian, so different from the other village boys, secretly reading books and dreaming of getting an education that is not available to him. Years later, Yitian is teaching at an American university, and Hanwen is a socialite, the wife of a high-ranking Chinese official. Having met many years later, they go in search of the missing old man, plunging into the past - their own and the country. “Map of Loss” is a subtle novel about family, forgiveness, attempts to change fate and what true home is..