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Winner of the 2005 Somerset
Maugham
Award
Shortlisted for the 2005 Encore Award
By the acclaimed author of
The Drink and Dream Teahouse, Passing Under Heaven is
both beautifully written and compulsively readable: a
thousand-year-old story of love and loss brought vividly to life.
'Lyrical,
fascinating, and often genuinely moving, definitely a novel to get
lost in as the winter nights approach.'
Evening
Herald
'Passing
Under Heaven is something to be stepped into as indulgently as a
long, fragrant bath: time slows down; the language seeps in
gradually, until you are immersed in China’s golden era…in this
superbly reseached story Justin Hill reaches new heights.
Passing Under Heaven is unforgettable.'
Irish
Examiner
On the edge of the Siberian
grasslands that border imperial China, in the last years of the
great Tang dynasty, the beautiful daughter of a warrior and his
concubine is born into a dying world.
Lily's China is a place of
pavilions and temples, lakes and snow-capped mountains, sages,
scholars and poets. But it is also founded on ancient cruelty and
injustice and subject to a wanton and capricious ruler. The fortunes
of Lily, given up by her mother and orphaned before she is five
years old, are bound tight to those of this vast, decaying empire.
As Lily struggles for her
freedom from the antique rituals and intricate, brittle hierarchies
of imperial society, she uses her gift for invention to transform
herself, from wilful daughter to adored concubine, from notorious
courtesan to great poetess. But as the barbarian hordes gather for
invasion, the fate that has always awaited Lily draws near...
By the acclaimed author of
The Drink and Dream Teahouse, Passing Under Heaven is
both beautifully written and compulsively readable: a
thousand-year-old story of love and loss brought vividly to life.
Observer - Too Beautiful to Live
Guardian - China Girl
Bibliofemme
Independent
'Passionately imagined'
The Sunday Telegraph
‘Beautifully written, sad and interesting’
Daily Mail
'Minister Li and Yu Xuanji's long-running and tortured love affair
is beautifully handled.'
Observer
'Justin Hill has a keen eye for detail ... the novel is
extraordinarily well crafted'
Kirkus
'Another
beautifully rendered Chinese tale by Hill....the
novel is notable for Hill's masterly craftsmanship and remarkably
sympathetic sense of character. Skilled fiction of vibrant immediacy
and majestic scope.'
Reviews of
Passing Under Heaven:
'A novel about
abandonment, reckless love and bravery. Lyrical, fascinating, and
often genuinely moving, definitely a novel to get lost in as the
winter nights approach.'
Claire Kilroy, Evening Herald
'Passing Under
Heaven is something to be stepped into as indulgently as a long,
fragrant bath: time slows down; the language seeps in gradually,
until you are immersed in China’s golden era…in this superbly reseached story Justin Hill reaches new heights. Passing Under
Heaven is unforgettable.'
Afric Hamlton, Irish Examiner
'Superbly
evoked…Minister Li and Yu Xuanji cannot live with or without each
other…(Passing Under Heaven) is a beautifully handled reminder that
some things remain constant.'
Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail
'Hill is
an astute observer of human nature and a superb writer. As a young
man, Hill spent three years as an aid worker in rural China,
experience that has clearly not gone to waste' Asian Review of
Books
'Despite
the remoteness of the material, Hill manages to give a contemporary
feel to the text and his translations of Yu's poems, which were
preserved for their curiosity value, have a freshness that belies
their age.
Justin Hill has a keen eye for detail and
both when describing the humble and the elevated, his language, like
Yu's, is elegantly understated and refreshing. A former voluntary
aid worker in China and Eritrea, his knowledge of Chinese history,
tradition and etiquette is intricate without becoming tedious and
the novel is extraordinarily well crafted.'
Zoe
Green, Observer
'beautifully written, sad and
interesting,'
Jessica
Mann, Sunday Telegraph
'beautifully
written and totally absorbing'
Historical
Novels Review
'passionately imagined'
Independent
'The freezing cold winters of
Northern China, the magnificent pavilions and temples of the great
cities, the curious gastronomic delights all come alive in the pages
of this historical novel, set in the twilight years of the Tang
Dynasty, over a thousand years ago…Passing Under Heaven captures a
fleeting moment of Chinese History when women enjoyed a level of
personal freedom that would not again be allowed until the end of
the twentieth century,'
Books
Ireland
| 
The
Drink and Dream Teahouse
A
Bend in the Yellow River