num_pages: 496
description: A dangerous rescue attempt in Michigan has captured the attention of the entire country. A two-year-old girl has fallen down a mine shaft. Ursula Wong is the only child of a poor family and referred to by one member of the TV audience as 'half-breed trailer trash', not worth all the expense. But there is much more to Ursula than she is the last of her family line - and here the novel explodes into a gorgeous saga of culture, history and heredity. By its end, we've met, among others of Ursula's forebears, a second-century-B. C. Chinese alchemist; an orphaned consort to a Swedish queen; and Ursula's great-great-grandfather, Jake Maki, a miner who died in a cave-in aged twenty-nine. Ursula's fate echoes those of her ancestors, many of whom so narrowly escaped not being born that any given individual's life comes to seem a miracle.
language: English
title: Ursula, Under
titlecomplete: Ursula, Under
genres: Family, Fiction, 19th Century, China, Contemporary, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Adult, Novels
ratings_count: 1599
places: Sweden, Michigan, China
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Longlist
publisher: Vintage Books