2024 Locus Award for Best Novella (nominee)
2024 Nebula Award for Best Novella
2023 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Praise for this book
"A devastating parable of loss, Ai Jiang's Linghun is a meditation on grief, how it changes us, makes ghost of the living, and keeps us trapped in prisons of mourning. It's a testament to Jiang's ferocity as a lyricist of sorrow and heartbreak that I read this book in one sitting and expect it will haunt me for a very, very long time to come. Truly remarkable." - Kealan Patrick Burke
"Ai Jiang probes the very notion of ghosts to offer us something far more haunting: it is the living who we should fear the most, where the boundless parameters of our own grief lay down the blueprint for an altogether new Hill House to inhabit." - Clay McLeod Chapman
"Ai Jiang's Linghun is the ache that follows after every funeral, when the mourners are gone and nothing is left but the haunting of memories. A ruthlessly precise meditation on what grief does to the heart, Linghun is a must-read if you enjoy crying your way through every chapter of a book." - Cassandra Khaw
"Mother believes the dead deserve our full attention-Linghun asks us whether that's at the expense of the living. A dark, wise, and heartbreaking examination of grief and yearning, family and agency." - Premee Mohamed
"Eerie and palpable, with unrequited longing, Linghun is a quiet tour de force, a diasporic ghost story of half-life, family, and deferred dreams. Ai Jiang's writing is fiercely evocative and resounds with meaning and clarity. Linghun is a tale that lingers." - Lee Murray
"A somber but beautiful story about grief and the pain of memory. The ghosts stay with us long after Ai Jiang's Linghun is over, but they remind us of the gift we have that is to be alive." - Cynthia Pelayo
"The neighborhood in Linghun is a twisted-neck demon, forever looking backward at the ghosts and ghosts-to-be. Ai Jiang builds an altar of the flawed living and the perfect dead with an unflinching eye for death-cloaked domestic tragedy. A haunting, brilliant debut." - Hailey Piper
"Ai Jiang's debut novella Linghun packs an absolute punch. A reflection on grief, the dangers of not letting go, on the terrible price of love-and why we're so willing to pay for it. Wonderful, strange, and heartbreaking. Highly recommended." - Angela Slatter
"Ai Jiang probes the very notion of ghosts to offer us something far more haunting: it is the living who we should fear the most, where the boundless parameters of our own grief lay down the blueprint for an altogether new Hill House to inhabit." - Clay McLeod Chapman
"Ai Jiang's Linghun is the ache that follows after every funeral, when the mourners are gone and nothing is left but the haunting of memories. A ruthlessly precise meditation on what grief does to the heart, Linghun is a must-read if you enjoy crying your way through every chapter of a book." - Cassandra Khaw
"Mother believes the dead deserve our full attention-Linghun asks us whether that's at the expense of the living. A dark, wise, and heartbreaking examination of grief and yearning, family and agency." - Premee Mohamed
"Eerie and palpable, with unrequited longing, Linghun is a quiet tour de force, a diasporic ghost story of half-life, family, and deferred dreams. Ai Jiang's writing is fiercely evocative and resounds with meaning and clarity. Linghun is a tale that lingers." - Lee Murray
"A somber but beautiful story about grief and the pain of memory. The ghosts stay with us long after Ai Jiang's Linghun is over, but they remind us of the gift we have that is to be alive." - Cynthia Pelayo
"The neighborhood in Linghun is a twisted-neck demon, forever looking backward at the ghosts and ghosts-to-be. Ai Jiang builds an altar of the flawed living and the perfect dead with an unflinching eye for death-cloaked domestic tragedy. A haunting, brilliant debut." - Hailey Piper
"Ai Jiang's debut novella Linghun packs an absolute punch. A reflection on grief, the dangers of not letting go, on the terrible price of love-and why we're so willing to pay for it. Wonderful, strange, and heartbreaking. Highly recommended." - Angela Slatter
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