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Ghost Cities
by Siang Lu

Perfect for fans of Haruki Murakami, Ghost Cities is a profound and highly imaginative novel that cleverly draws on Chinese history to explore the absurdity of modern life and work.

A$34.99

(Trade paperback)

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Overview

Ghost Cities – inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China – 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.

How is his relocation to one such 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 re-created, page by page and book by book, all in the name of love and art?

Allegorical and imaginative, Ghost Cities will appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and Italo Calvino.

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Awards

Reviews

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Kate Mildenhall

‘Ghost Cities is a labyrinth of a novel that delights, terrifies, thrills and amuses in the very best of ways. An inventive and philosophical exploration of power, automation, art and love where nothing is as it seems; a decadent feast fashioned from tofu, a lush orchard carved from stone. Siang Lu’s brain at play is a thing of wonder.’

Hayley Scrivenor

‘What a pleasure to follow Siang Lu into his labyrinthine Ghost Cities! An instant Australian classic that stands both on the shoulders of giants and yet is somehow completely and delightfully new. Lashings of myth, absurdity, humour and pathos come together in this paean to art in all its forms. I want to crumple this novel into a ball and swallow it, whole.’

Nick Earls

‘Ghost Cities is a stunning piece of writing. It’s quite a feat to create one labyrinth in a book in a way that’s intricate and convincing, but somehow Siang Lu creates two that are, places them centuries apart and makes them act as mirrors to each other. I don’t know what would make an author even think that was possible, and yet here it is. Amazing. I hope it gets the recognition it deserves.’

Alice Pung

‘I love Ghost Cities. The inventiveness, the genius of it all – it is like the lovechild of Viet Thanh Nguyen crossed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez crossed with Kevin Kwan. It is nuts, and deep, and moving, and also funny.’

Guardian

‘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.’

Bora Chung, International Booker shortlisted author of Cursed Bunny

‘I was mesmerised the moment I opened this book.’

Siang Lu

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 was 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.