In 1928, Grace Divine, daughter of a conservative Chattanooga family, came to New York City, accompanied by her mother, to study opera singing. Liu Fu-chi, a scholarship student studying engineering at Columbia, lived in the same building. They met. They became friends. Only after Fu-chi left for further study in Germany did they realize they had fallen in love. Fu-chi renounced his scholarship and returned to New York. They became engaged. An interracial marriage was illegal in Tennessee; her brothers came to intervene. Nonetheless, in 1932 at the height of the Depression, Grace and Fu-chi went to City Hall and were married. He left for China to look for a job. Pregnant, Grace stayed behind. Then, when the baby could travel, she went to join her husband in Tientsin. She was to remain in China for the next forty years, through the Japanese Occupation, the fall of the Nationalist Government and the Cultural Revolution. This biography, composed in large part of Grace Liu's letters and the memoir she began, has been compiled by her cousin, Eleanor McCallie Cooper, who lives in Chattanooga and her surviving child, William Liu, who now lives in Vancouver.

Grace: An American Woman's Forty Years in China, 1934-1974

Biographies & Memoirs

Liu, William

Cooper, Eleanor McCallie

Community & Culture

Soho Press

"The extraordinary life of a courageous, outspoken American woman who survived forty years of upheaval in twentieth-century China . . . A unique perspective on a period of -critical transformations in China."—Kirkus Reviews "Reads like a riveting and complex novel. Set against the fascinating backdrop of China during the Cultural Revolution, it is the story of a strong woman who followed her heart against the odds."—Lee Smith, The Last Girls Eleanor McCallie Cooper lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. William Liu, Grace’s only surviving child, teaches at Simon Frasier University in Vancouver.

Grace: An American Woman in China, 1934-1974

Dragonfly Dreams

"If a dragonfly lands on you, it means change is coming. You better watch your dreams, Nini." Living in China when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Nini and her family don't realize that their world is about to collapse. Nini and her best friend Chiyoko are on their way home from school when they are stopped by Japanese soldiers and forced to step aside for a car with a mysterious passenger. Uncertain of what is happening, they create a secret hiding place to leave messages for each other. Nini's family is soon forced into hiding to protect her American mother from being arrested and sent to an internment camp. When the family situation becomes desperate amid circumstances of hunger, disease, and quarantine, Nini is the only one who can make the dangerous journey across the war-torn city to save her family and find her best friend. Not since Empire of the Sun has a book captured the drama of Westerners trapped in China during World War II.

Teen & Young Adult

Historical Fiction

Forward Press

"If a dragonfly lands on you, it means change is coming. You better watch your dreams, Nini." Living in China when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Nini and her family don't realize that their world is about to collapse. Nini and her best friend Chiyoko are on their way home from school when they are stopped by Japanese soldiers and forced to step aside for a car with a mysterious passenger. Uncertain of what is happening, they create a secret hiding place to leave messages for each other. Nini's family is soon forced into hiding to protect her American mother from being arrested and sent to an internment camp. When the family situation becomes desperate amid circumstances of hunger, disease, and quarantine, Nini is the only one who can make the dangerous journey across the war-torn city to save her family and find her best friend. Not since Empire of the Sun has a book captured the drama of Westerners trapped in China during World War II.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cooper, Eleanor McCallie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cooper, Eleanor McCallie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cooper, Eleanor McCallie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Grace: An American Woman's Forty Years in China, 1934-1974

Grace: An American Woman in China, 1934-1974

Dragonfly Dreams

Dragonfly Dreams