The Lost Chronicles of Kyakhta
Now available in Chinese
The Lost Chronicles of Kyakhta begins in Kyakhta in 1918, tracing how the revolutionary ideals of the twentieth century emerged, traveled across borders, transformed, and eventually faded into history. A prequel to Amber, it is also able to stands as a novel in its own right. The story connects the Russian Revolution, the upheavals of modern China, Mongolia and the Sino-Russian borderlands, European revolutionary thought, and the later histories of Hong Kong and Taiwan, spanning from the late nineteenth century into the twenty-first.
The novel unfolds along two narrative lines. One begins in Kyakhta in 1918, returning to an age of revolution and political awakening. In the winter of 1918, several friends who have known one another since their youth reunite in Kyakhta, a small town on the Mongolian-Russian border. Allied forces are gathering in the Russian Far East as foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War starts to stir. Siberia is divided among competing powers, while the Beiyang government faces the urgent task of repatriating nearly a million Chinese laborers. History is entering a new and turbulent chapter.
Old friends and new acquaintances gather in Kyakhta, of different nationalities but shared missions, beliefs in the future, and faith in friendship. The seeds have already been sown, though no one can yet foresee what they will bring. Thus begins an age of dreams. Change will soon sweep across the world, bringing with it new visions of solidarity. The strength of their ideals as well as their faith in one another are questions the survivors will confront again and again through the upheavals ahead.
The second narrative line opens in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1980s, where a post-revolutionary world confronts questions first raised in 1918.
By the late 1980s, a new Cold War order is taking shape, and opposing camps are searching for intermediaries who can open channels of communication. Attention turns to the New York–based Tse family and its vast financial empire, with its matriarch, Dunn Tse, emerging as an ideal intermediary. Yet for more than half a century, she has already moved between competing powers and across political divides. The path that brought her there can be traced back to Kyakhta in 1918.
The Lost Chronicles of Kyakhta structures its narrative across nine “ages”: “The Age of Revolution,” “The Age of Liberalization,” “The Age of Awakening,” “The Age of Learning,” “The Age of Doubt,” “The Age of Seeking,” “The Age of Separation,” “The Age of Passing,” and “The Age of Return.” Together, they trace a spiritual trajectory:
Awakening → Belief → Action → Doubt → Separation → Disappearance → Looking Forward
As a prequel to Amber, The Lost Chronicles of Kyakhta reveals the untold histories of several of its central characters, while tracing how idealists are tested at different turning points of the twentieth century.
The novel portrays a generation who once believed they could change the world, and asks, after history has run its course, how we are to understand their beliefs, betrayals, failures, and legacy.