The promise: tales of love and loss in modern China

Xinran begins with the magic and tragedy of one young couple's wedding night in 1950, and goes on to tell personal experiences of loss, grief and hardship through China's extraordinary century.

In doing so she tells a bigger story - how traditional Chinese values have been slowly eroded by the tide of modernity and how their outlooks on love, and the choices they've made in life, have been all been affected by the great upheavals of Chinese history.