Empire of Glass

Written by Kaitlin Solimine

Narrated by Joshua Fu and Si Chen

In the mid-1990s, an American teenager, named Lao K in Chinese, stands on Coal Hill, a park in Beijing, a loop of rope in her hand. Will she assist her Chinese homestay mother, Li-Ming, who is dying of cancer, in ending her life, or will she choose another path? Twenty years later, Lao K receives a book written by Li-Ming called “Empire of Glass,” a narrative that chronicles the lives of Li-Ming and her husband, Wang, in pre and post-revolutionary China over the last half of the twentieth century. Lao K begins translating the story, which becomes the novel we are reading. But, as translator, how can Lao K separate fact from fiction, and what will her role be in the book’s final chapter?

A grand, experimental epic—Lao K’s story is told in footnotes that run throughout the book—that chronicles the seismic changes in China over the last half century through the lens of one family’s experiences, Empire of Glass is an investigation into the workings of human memory and the veracity of oral history that pushes the boundaries of language and form in stunning and unforgettable ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Everand Productions
• Release date: May 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9781094461199

Kaitlin Solimine

Kaitlin Solimine is the author of Empire of Glass (Ig Publishing, NYC), finalist for the 2017 Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and a 2018 Firecracker Award finalist. Her multilingual children’s book, Sleeping Stones (pub. Madeleine Editions, 2020) won the Dragonfly Book Awards’ Green/Environmental book of the year. She has been a Fulbright Creative Fellow in China, winner of the Dzanc Books/Disquiet International Literary Program award, and a SF Grotto Writing Fellow, among other honors. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Guernica Magazine, China Daily, MomEgg, and more. She is the host of The Postpartum Production Podcast, a series of conversations with caregiver-artists navigating the complex journey of creativity and parenting. She resides in San Francisco with her partner and three children, where she is at work on a second novel as well as a book of essays.