The Moon Swells, the Great River Flows

The story is set during the Republic of China, in the years of resistance against Japan. Two cousins with very different personalities are admitted to the National Drama School in Nanjing, one of the predecessors of the Central Academy of Drama, and devote themselves to art in pursuit of their ideals. In those years of unending warfare, their fates intertwine, their love and hatred become entangled, and their joys and sorrows are swept forward by the torrent of the times. With the National Drama School as its anchor and theater as its flame, the novel follows the rises and falls, meetings and partings of many characters, bearing witness to the fortunes of a family and even an entire nation. A tale of tragic, deep love, it composes a tumultuous and mournful epic of a troubled age.