Master storyteller continues to delight

Stories by Toronto-based author Zhang Ling, 58, know how to enter the readers’ hearts and leave an impression that demands more pages to turn even when the book is finished.

Aftershock, a graphic tale of choices amid the massive Tangshan earthquake in northern China in 1976, so impressed director Feng Xiaogang that it was turned into a blockbuster in 2010.

Zhang’s latest novel, Birth Throes, received wide critical acclaim including from Writers Publishing House veteran editor Wang Shuyuan. Closer to home, Wang’s daughter in her 20s, found the draft difficult to put down even before it was published.