Michael Blumenthal Recreates Wartime Shanghai in Novel

A haven for refugees and a playground for the rich, Shanghai in the 1930s and 40s was a city of extraordinary contradictions: its glittering nightlife flourished alongside poverty, corruption, and political intrigue, while foreign powers and criminal syndicates carved out their own spheres of influence. In City of Masks (Post Hill Press), Michael Blumenthal tells a tale of grifters, gangsters, and spies against this volatile backdrop, as the Japanese occupation and World War II upend the city’s fragile order. Though this is a work of fiction, the novel draws on Blumenthal’s firsthand experience of Shanghai, where he sought refuge from Nazi Europe in 1939 and remained for eight years.

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