Sojourners - Large Print by Te-Ping Chen (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The story of two sisters from a small town on Hawai'i's Big Island: When the elder goes missing, the younger takes on the family's livelihood, until an uncanny voice on the radio convinces her to travel to Honolulu, searching for her sister, long assumed dead.

Big Island, 1920 The Kau sisters, Kana and Leilani, grow up in a small village miles from Hilo, their father the owner of the town's sole general store, a store that he inherited from his father and intends to pass on to his daughters. Half-Chinese, half-Hawaiian, Kana and Leilani fit right into the changing face of their home, which is ever-evolving as plantation workers from China, Japan, and Portugal build new lives, while off in the islands' cities, a tourism industry catering to visitors from the mainland is growing with dizzying speed.

The Kau sisters grow from an idyllic childhood into a happy adolescence--until the day Leilani goes missing. Last seen leaving church, she never makes it home and eventually is presumed dead. Grief changes the Kau parents, forcing Kana to run the store on her own, her life settled into place in her teens. But then one day she hears a voice on the radio that haunts her with its similarity to Leilani's. It's advertised as belonging to a singer performing at one of Honolulu's finest hotels. And though it's against every ounce of her practical nature, Kana goes to see this singer in person, a journey that alters the course of her life, in ways that unfold over the span of years and force her to confront uncomfortable truths about her family.

A sweeping tale of two young women coming of age in a changing world, Sojourners transports readers to a paradise discovered, beautifully and poignantly illustrating how malleable even the most seemingly indelible parts of our lives can be, and just what it takes to fly free from the past.

Review Quotes

"Spellbinding, enchanting, lyrical and heart-breaking, Sojourners is one of the best books I've read in recent years. Te-Ping Chen has gifted us a miracle of a novel."
--Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing and Dust Child

About the Author

TE-PING CHEN is a journalist and the author of the story collection Land of Big Numbers, a Washington Post Notable Fiction title and one of President Barack Obama's favorite books of 2021. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Granta and Tin House. She is a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Philadelphia.