About — Kaitlin Solimine

Kaitline Solimine — **Kaitlin Solimine** is the author of award-winning novel *Empire of Glass* (Ig Publishing, 2017) and a children’s book, Sleeping Stones (Madeleine Editions, 2020). Her award-winning writing has been published in National Geographic News, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, China Daily, Guernica Magazine, and Kartika Review, among others. Her work focuses on travel, exploration, expatriate culture, US-China relations, environmental issues, and motherhood. She has lived around the world—from New England to China to Singapore to San Francisco—and is co-founder of the academic media network Hippo Reads.

EMPIRE OF GLASS

Short-Listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize

In the mid-1990s, an American teenager, named Lao K, stands on Coal Hill in Beijing, a loop of rope in her hand. Will she assist her Chinese homestay mother, Li-Ming, 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 chronicling the lives of Li-Ming and her husband, Wang, in pre and post-revolutionary China. 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.

Amazon

Bookshop.org

Indiebound

Barnes and Nobles

Empire of Glass - Book Trailer

Book Tour Schedule

I’m coming to these cities near you! Please come out if you can. I hope to see you soon!

February 17 at 11:00AM: San Francisco Writers Conference “Bang-Up Book Publicity” Panel Moderator, San Francisco, CA
February 22 at 7:30PM: Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park, CA
March 3 at 5:15PM: California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA
March 8 at 1:30PM: AWP Conference “Writing From Privilege: Who Can Write What and Why?” Moderator, Tampa, FL
March 21 at 7PM: Suzhou Bookworm, Suzhou, China
March 22 at 7PM: Literary Shanghai Reading, Location TBD
March 23, TBD: Beijing Bookworm International Literary Festival, China
March 24, TBD: Beijing Bookworm International Literary Festival, in conversation with Xu Xi, China

EMPIRE OF GLASS

Fiction Writers Review

Radii China: Interview with Xu Xi

Q&A on Harvardwood!