Beautiful and Tragic: A Guest Post by Ann Liang

A young woman harnesses the power of her own mesmerizing beauty in order to protect her family in this moving tale inspired by an ancient Chinese legend. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Ann Liang on writing Our Monthly Pick, A Song to Drown Rivers.

One of my favorite memories from my childhood in Beijing is watching historical C-dramas with my family. Every night after dinner, we would gather around on the couch with plates of sliced fruit or roasted sunflower seeds, and I’d find myself transported into an ancient world of kings and spies, myth and moonlight, gilded courts and gleaming swords. Everything was beautiful and tragic, or sometimes beautiful because it was so tragic. Yes, fate could be cruel, and nothing lasted—and still, the characters fell in love again and again, across lifetimes, across battlefields, across enemy lines, proving that love was every bit as inevitable as death. 

These C-dramas were often over forty episodes long, and by the time we finished watching the last episode, I always had this bittersweet feeling, this ache in my chest, like I was saying goodbye not only to the characters in the story, but also to an era of my life.

It was this precise feeling I hoped to capture with A Song to Drown Rivers. For years, I’d wanted to write a novel inspired by my favorite C-dramas and legends, and after rediscovering the story of spy-seductress Xishi in my early twenties, all the pieces seemed to fall into place. I could see the book forming inside my head, the scenes playing out vividly like the dramas that had shaped my childhood, their texture and atmosphere. I could even see the ending before I’d so much as finished the first chapter.

In a way, A Song to Drown Rivers was the most challenging novel I’ve ever had to write—it was so different from the contemporary novels I’d written before, and I felt the weight of the popular legend resting on every word I typed, the fear of not doing Xishi’s story justice. But at the same time, it also felt very natural to write A Song to Drown Rivers. Like I was returning to a world I already knew.

It’s now been a year since A Song to Drown Rivers was first released. Since then, I’ve received many messages from readers, telling me that reading the book reminded them of the historical C-dramas they used to watch when they were younger. That it left them with a bittersweet feeling. An ache in their chest. Such moments are exactly why I write, and why I’m so deeply excited and grateful for all the new readers this book might reach with the paperback release.