About the Book: Ghost Cities is a dazzlingly inventive, award-winning novel blending ancient Chinese mythology with the surreal realities of modern China. When Xiang, a young translator at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, is exposed for using Google Translate because he cannot actually speak Chinese, his embarrassing downfall goes viral and attracts the attention of eccentric filmmaker Baby Bao. Soon, Xiang is drawn into a film project set in one of China’s abandoned “ghost cities.” His journey becomes intertwined with extraordinary tales of ancient emperors, mysterious doubles, sentient mountains, chess-playing automatons and a vast literary act of devotion. A bold, imaginative story about identity, myth, art and love.