That experience and a racist encounter with cops investigating the crime propel Chen to reach out to the chief executive of a shadowy Chinese government-backed conglomerate. The novel’s main character, Will Chen, is a Harvard art history student who witnesses the theft of Chinese artifacts from a campus museum by an organized team that leaves him an intriguing calling card. The premise of “Portrait of a Thief” is deceptively simple. “Despite the differences between medicine and writing,” she says during a recent conversation, “both require thinking deeply and thoughtfully about the world and the people in it.” Please note any accommodation requests in the Special Needs section of the registration form.The story of why Li turned to fiction in a crisis - and pursued two seemingly opposing career paths - has as many twists and turns as Li’s novel, born from her experiences as a scientist and writer, American-born and ethnically Chinese.įor Li, who starts her third year in medical school this summer, her career choices aren’t contradictory. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they’ve dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted attempt to take back what colonialism has stolen. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down.īecause if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars-and a chance to make history. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering major who races cars in her free time. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A con artist: Irene Chen, a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything. His crew is every heist archetype one can imagine-or at least, the closest he can get.
But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible-and illegal-job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now.Ī senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents’ American Dream. If you sign up below to be on the waitlist, we will
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