The China Lover
By Ian Buruma
Atlantic Books £15.99 320 pages
FT Bookshop price: £12.79

Li Xianglan, heroine of Ian Buruma’s new novel, was one of the so-called Seven Great Singing Stars – the most renowned performers of stage and screen in 1930s and 1940s China. Li was, in fact, Japanese but this twist in her background suits The China Lover perfectly: cultural confusion is something Li (real name Yamaguchi Yoshiko) shares with all the main characters in Buruma’s intriguing novel, in which issues of race, nationality, taste and ambition are continually explored.