American interpretor Alice Mannegan goes by more than one name. When she's on the job, representing her English-speaking clients to China's business and political elite, she uses the name Mo Ai-Ii, a respectable, old-fashioned name. When she retreats to the smoke-filled karaoke bars of Beijing's underside, she calls herself Yulian, fragrant lotus, and the Chinese men she so desires never misunderstand her or her intentions.
But at the core of this constant role playing lies her restless spirit. Determined to escape the legacy of her racist father, Alice seeks to lose herself in the very heart of China. In fact, Alice Mannegan wants nothing more than to be Chinese. When offered an assignment to act as interpretor for Dr. Adam Spencer, an American archeologist in search of the elusive Peking Man, Nice can't refuse. Joined by two Chinese professors, including Dr. Lin Shiyang, a specialist in homo erectus, the four set out among the breathtaking desert landscape of northwest China to retrace the steps of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the exiled priest who discovered Peking Man Just before World War II created chaos inthe East.
As they come closer to tracking down Peking Man, each unearths the demons in his or her own past. Spencer struggles to win the love of his estranged son, Lin to reconcile the ghost of his long-lost wife, a victim of the Cultural Revolution, and Alice to repair the past with her now dying father. Seeking solace and love in one another, Lin and Nice begin to help each other heal, and move on to an uncertain future.
Marked by the vast landscape of a timeless country, unforgettable characters and grand themes, "Lost in Translation" is an extraordinary and intelligent debut. Less
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