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Set against the backdrop of 1975 Communist China, award-winning author Ruyan Meng weaves the story of two men whose love is both salvation and crime—a stunning work of historical fiction for fans of Lisa See and Ha Jin
“All it takes is a small boat in a fishing village by the sea…a small boat, then two people could live together.”
After a lifetime toiling in labor camps and gritty factories in Communist China, Lian Li finds himself on the brink of retirement. Yet, as his final day of work dawns, he learns that Zai Tian, his closest friend and collegue of twenty-five years, has just been arrested—sentenced to life in prison for sodomy and rape.
Desperate to understand the circumstances around Zai Tian’s incarceration, Lian Li wanders the bleak city, haunted by the ghosts of his past: from his wealthy childhood before the Cultural Revolution to the sudden disappearance of his wife and daughter during the years of the Great Famine. Hounded by the suspicions of his neighbors and fellow workers, Lian Li grapples with the loss of the man dearest to him—a dearness Lian Li has never spoken, and barely dares to acknowledge.
Introspective and aching, One Is Three paints a sharp portrait of a life against the foreboding backdrop of 1975 Communist China—a portrait of unspoken love between two men who, like the Chinese sparrows who survived Mao’s extermination, continue to sing even among those who would eradicate them.
Ruyan Meng was born and educated in China. After the Tiananmen Square protests, she fled to the United States in 1990. Her first book, Only the Cat Knows, won the Red Hen Press Fiction Award in 2020 and was published in 2022. Her second book, The Morgue Keeper, was released on October 15, 2025 by 7.13 Press and was longlisted for the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Her third book, One Is Three, won the Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction in 2025 and will be published in spring 2027. She lives in Frisco, TX.