A Many-Splendoured Thing
| A Many-Splendoured Thing | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Han Suyin |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publication date | 1952 |
| Media type | Print (book) |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-553-22736-X |
| OCLC Number | 8843292 |
A Many-Splendoured Thing is a novel by Han Suyin. It was made into the 1955 film Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, which also inspired a famous song. In her autobiographical work "My House Has Two Doors" she clearly dissociates herself from the film and had no interest in even watching it in Singapore where it ran for several months. Her motive in selling the film rights to the novel apparently was to pay for an operation in England for her adopted daughter who was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis.
It tells the story of a married British foreign correspondent called Mark Elliot (Ian Morrison in real life and based in Singapore where he lived with his wife and children) who falls in love with an Eurasian doctor originally from Mainland China who trained at the Royal Free Hospital Medical College in London University, only to encounter prejudice from her family and from Hong Kong society. It is a many-layered novel. On the surface it is a love story but there is an historical perspective relating to China, Hong Kong and the peoples and societies that populated the island. This includes many who have fled from the final stages of the Chinese Civil War, both Chinese and Europeans long settled in China.
It portrays an insight into class and race prejudice that is as relevant today in Hong Kong as it was in the fifties. Although it is technically a novel, the book is strongly autobiographical. Han Suyin's real life lover was killed in The Korean War in 1950. Two years later, she married Leon F. Comber, a British officer in the Malayan Special Branch,
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