Wendy Chen’s novel Their Divine Fires is a multi-generational wonder, a debut that poignantly depicts a family’s past, present, and time in-between.
Booklist wrote of the book:
“This powerful yet tender epic is perfect for readers of intergenerational fiction driven by strong female leads.”
In her own words, here is Wendy Chen’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Their Divine Fires:
I’ve always written my best work while listening to music. When I sit down to write a poem, I like to listen to a song that has a particularly strong beat—that way, I can write to or against the rhythm. When I write long-form fiction, I listen to songs that are able to immerse me in some way in the setting. I’m a very visual writer—I have a background in art—so I envision everything first before writing it down. Music serves as a soundtrack to the scenes I imagine in my mind.
The songs in this playlist all shaped the writing of my novel Their Divine Fires, an epic Chinese family saga about the love affairs of three generations of women in one family. Starting from the early 1900s in China and ending in modern-day America, the novel considers the ways that resistance, revolution, and passion shape our lives. Here are eight love songs corresponding to different historical time periods in the novel that will help set the scene for you.
Wolf, Skott
The 1910s in China, when my novel begins, was a period marked by the end of dynastic rule and the beginning of a new Republic of China. Everywhere, people were hungering for a better future for their nation. In the case of my characters—the siblings Yunhong, Yunli, and Yunjun—they each hunger to become something more than what their parents or society imagines for them. The desire in this song, and the desperation, captures this particular momentum in the opening of my novel.
Best Case Life, Gemini Rising, Tensnake, Fiora
The 1920s was a troubled period for China. Two factions divided the nation: the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Then, of course, there were the regional warlords who controlled vast resources and further fragmented China. In 1924, however, the First United Front—an alliance between the Kuomintang and the Community Party—was formed in order to try to reunify the nation. Yunli and Yunjun, whose sympathies both lie with the Communists, want to believe that the First United Front can heal the nation, despite knowing full well the extent of the simmering tensions between the factions. This song’s message about following your heart despite knowing the dangers of doing so is evocative of Yunli and Yunjun’s emotions.
The Chain, Fleetwood Mac
I’m always moved by the feelings of betrayal that run throughout this song whenever I listen to it. This sense of betrayal reflects the betrayals that characterized the 1930s in China. After the collapse of the First United Front, the civil war between the Communists and Kuomintang resumed. Only the invasion of the Japanese army in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 could force the two sides together again—though any trust between them was long gone. In Their Divine Fires, the fractures in the country are mirrored by the fractures within Yunhong, Yunli, and Yunjun’s family.
The Butterfly Lovers, Yu Lina
The 50s continued to be a difficult and unstable time for China: wars, civil wars, the Great Leap Forward. Composed in 1959 by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang, “The Butterfly Lovers” is one of China’s most famous orchestral works and blends elements of traditional Chinese music with an arrangement for a Western orchestra. I chose this recording by Yu Lina, as she was the original violinist for the premiere of the song, performing the work when she was just 19 years old. The song is named for a famous Chinese myth, in which two star-crossed lovers are unable to be with one another in life and reincarnate as butterflies after their deaths. I’ve often thought about the relationship between this composition and the Great Chinese Famine, which began in that same year and killed anywhere up to 55 million people. Could the composers have thought about the sorrow and grief of this famine while composing the song?
月亮代表我的心 (“The Moon Represents My Heart”), Teresa Teng
One of the most famous Asian pop singers, Teresa Teng’s music was beloved by my parents’ generation. My mother listened to Teresa’s music as a teenager in the bloom of her youth. Decades later, in America, I discovered her as a child through the cassette tapes my parents kept in the basement of our house. Because my depictions of the Cultural Revolution during the 60s and 70s was inspired by my mother’s stories of growing up during that time, I listened to this song and other songs of hers quite often while writing these sections. There’s a particular scene in my novel set in the 70s when two characters who are in love sit beneath a plum blossom tree and listen to Teresa’s music. This is the song I imagine them listening to.
Sun In Our Eyes, MØ, Diplo
In the 80s, many Chinese college students decided to pursue graduate studies in the United States, my parents among them. It was a period of renewed hope and promise, and China was opening up its borders and engaging in cultural exchanges with the rest of the world. This song, with its bright and upbeat tune, reflects the kind of youthful enthusiasm of so many Chinese students during that decade. In Their Divine Fires, one of Yunhong’s granddaughters takes a similar path as my parents and ends up in the States during this time.
Nobody, Mitski
The character in my novel who I share the most similarities with is Emily, Yunhong’s great-granddaughter. Like me, she was born in the States in the 90s and grew up trying to understand her family’s history which felt, at times, entirely separate from her identity and what she knew. Mitski’s soulful voice and heartfelt lyrics about wanting a connection reflects Emily’s loneliness and feelings of isolation as a Chinese American girl.
Your Light, The Big Moon
My novel ends in the 2010s in America, when family members who have not seen each other for years are finally reunited. Misunderstandings, willful silences, and family secrets that have accumulated over the decades all must finally be reckoned with. How can one family put aside their pride and egos in order to navigate difficult conversations? “Your Light” captures the hope and possibility that love offers up to all of us.
Wendy Chen is the author of the poetry collection Unearthings (Tavern Books) and the novel Their Divine Fires (Algonquin). She is the editor of Figure 1, associate editor-in-chief of Tupelo Quarterly, and prose editor of Tupelo Press. Her poetry translations of Song-dynasty woman writer Li Qingzhao are forthcoming in a collection titled The Magpie at Night from FSG in 2025. She earned her MFA in poetry from Syracuse University and her PhD in English from the University of Denver. Currently, she teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.