Wuhan
John Fletcher2021

Wuhan, 1937. China is at war, invaded by the Japanese Army, who sweep through the country killing indiscriminately. As the capital city falls, Wuhan takes its place and will become pivotal in China's future.

1937. China is at war. Japanese soldiers sweep through the country, killing and displacing the millions who stand in their way. Nanjing has fallen, and Wuhan promoted in its place. While the rest of the world looks the other way, Wuhan stands alone against a whirlwind of violence which forced unprecedented cultural and political change. This will be a moment that shapes China's future.

Weaving together a multitude of narratives, Wuhan is a historical fiction epic that pulls no punches: the heart-in-mouth story of a peasant family forced onto a thousand-mile refugee death-march; the story of Lao She – the influential Chinese novelist – who leaves his family in a war-zone to assist with the propaganda effort in Wuhan; the hellish battlefields of the Sino-Japanese war; the incipient global conflict seen through a host of colourful characters – from Chiang Kai-Shek, China's nationalist leader, to Peter Fleming, British journalist based in Wuhan and a prototype for his younger brother Ian Fleming's James Bond.