History Matters: Dreams of the Red Phoenix

Taking her grandmother's life as inspiration, Virginia Pye, author of the critically-acclaimed debut novel River of Dust, has written a stunning new novel of Americans in China on the cusp of World War II. During the dangerous summer of 1937, a newly widowed American missionary finds herself and her teenage son caught up in the midst of a Japanese invasion of North China and the simultaneous rise of Communism. Shirley must manage her grief even as she navigates between her desire to help the idealistic Chinese Reds by serving as a nurse and the need to save both herself and her son by escaping the war-ravaged country before it’s too late.

Virginia will read from Dreams of the Red Phoenix, and also share intriguing, historical photos and writings from her missionary grandparents, who lived in rugged northwest China in the early twentieth century. Virginia holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and has taught writing at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University. Her first novel, River of Dust, is also a historical novel set in China. Her father, Lucian W. Pye, was born and raised in China and became an eminent political scientist and sinologist. Her grandfather, Congregational minister Rev. Watts O. Pye, was one of the first returning missionaries after the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Virginia's grandmother stayed in China after the death of her husband and fled with her son—Virginia’s father—on one of the last ships out of China to the U.S. following Pearl Harbor.

The Congregational Library & Archives is a major repository for diaries and letters of missionaries sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.F.M.) to places around the world. Its headquarters at 14 Beacon Street became a home for missionaries on leave. The collection of these personal manuscripts, as well as, A.B.C.F.M.’S institutional documents and publications are available to the public.

This event is co-sponsored by the Boston Athanaeum.