Chinatown was first published in Harvest literary magazine; the Kindle version became #1 on the Amazon Paid Kindle Bestseller list. The English edition included three extra literary reviews and two book interviews.
[About the Book]They are people who "do not exist" in mainstream society: illegal immigrants, refugee couples, children of high-ranking officials, rich second-generation dropouts, drug dealers, porters, human traffickers and prostitutes...Chinatown is like an oasis in the desert, providing them with mirage-like comfort in their overseas home where they have no relatives. Only in this small world, in the China of their imagination, can they find the final refuge for their wandering souls.
[Editor's recommendation]Chinatown is a life story and spiritual history of overseas Chinese who have lived in Chinatown for generations but have been forgotten by literature and history. The heavy and difficult subject of illegal immigrants, their true faces and living conditions, has never appeared in any contemporary literary works due to the absence of overseas Chinese writers, and even formed a shocking blank in the history of contemporary Chinese literature. Zhong Yilin's Chinatown fills this gap for the first time.
[Media Reviews]One of the great significances of the literary work "Chinatown" is that it has changed our understanding of the world. If there is no "Chinatown" but this work, our understanding of the world will be particularly narrow, but with such a literary work, our understanding of the world is different.
-Dialogue: "Chinatown", Harvest
They are people who "do not exist" in the mainstream society: illegal immigrants, refugee couples, children of high-ranking officials, rich second-generation dropouts, drug dealers, porters, human traffickers and prostitutes... "Chinatown" is a life story and spiritual history of overseas Chinese who have truly lived in Chinatown for generations but have been forgotten by literature and history. The heavy and difficult topic of illegal immigration has left a shocking gap in the history of contemporary Chinese literature due to the absence of overseas Chinese writers. Zhong Yilin's "Chinatown" fills this gap for the first time.
-Amazon Editor's Choice
Chinatown exists in alleys occupied by Chinese people in various countries. There are music halls, restaurants, Xinhua Bookstores, massage parlors, gangs, prostitutes, stowaways, migrant workers, all kinds of people. Everyone has their own story, whether happy or sad, love or hate. Everything has its roots, and every root is closely related to Chinatown . They live at the bottom, the bottom of society, and they have moved from China to London, Britain. They can and can only live in the same houses as in China, eat the same food, and make friends with the same people. They are still living in the old times, while London has entered the postmodern era.
-China Writers
Zhong Yilin's Chinatown reminds people of Lao She's Teahouse or Xia Yan's Shanghai Eaves. The difference is that this novel tells the story of overseas Chinese happening in the present, in the 21st century.
-Wenfen Chen-Malmqvist
[Readers' review]By chance, I, a student studying in the UK, moved in London's "Chinatown", and came into live with those marginalized illegal immigrants who came to the UK from China to seek their fortune. They did not know English, did illegal business, and could never go back after they got out of China. There was chef who made money and sent it back to support his wife and child, refugee couple who sold pirated CDs, rich student who became prostitute, and children of high-ranking officials who lived a life of drunkenness and debauchery. Most of them did not have legal status, but they lived a colorful life.
It is a set of gouache paintings and landscapes.
-Mandolin
The scenery is beautiful yet cruel.
-Kfj
