num_pages: 320
description: England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted the mysterious disappearance of his parents in Old Shanghai when he was a small boy. Now, as the world lurches towards total war, Banks realizes that the time has come for him to return to the city of his childhood and at last solve the mystery - that only by doing so will the world be saved from the approaching catastrophe.Moving between London and Shanghai of the inter-war years, When We Were Orphans is a story of remembrance, deception and the longing for home; of a childhood vision of the world surviving deep into adulthood, indelibly shaping and distorting a person's life.
language: English
title: When We Were Orphans
titlecomplete: When We Were Orphans
characters: Sir Cecil Medhurst, Mr Grayson, Aldra, Lady Beaton, Mr Lin, Wang Ku, Mr Banks, Mr MacDonald, Diana Banks, Colonel Chamberlain, Anthony Morgan, Sarah Hemmings, James Osbourne, Christopher Banks, Akira, Etsuko, Inspector Kung, Uncle Philip, Mei Li, Miss Givens, Jennifer
genres: Fiction, Historical, Mystery, British Literature, China, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 39194
places: Shanghai, London, England
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Whitbread Award
category: Novel
publisher: Knopf Canada