Mellissa Fung is an acclaimed Canadian journalist, memoirist and filmmaker. Fung was four years of age when her family immigrated to Canada and settled in Vancouver. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Under an Afghan Sky: A Memoir of Captivity (HarperCollins, 2011) is her haunting account of the twenty-eight days that she was held captive outside of Kabul in the fall of 2008. She published another non-fiction book, Between Good and Evil: The Stolen Girls of Boko Haram (HarperCollins, 2023). Fung was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2024.
Fiction
The Last Mandarin
Co-author: Louise Penny.
Minotaur Books, 2026.
Forthcoming May 2026.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Alice Li, a first-generation Chinese American and former food blogger, has long lived in the shadow of her mother, Vivien Li— a Tiananmen Square dissident turned world-renowned human rights activist and passionate advocate for a free and democratic China.
When security and fire alarms go off simultaneously all around the world, setting off a panic, the signal is traced back to China. As world leaders scramble to respond, Vivien and Alice are called to the White House in hopes Madame Li can interpret the Chinese intentions. But why involve Alice?
If China isn’t behind the attack, Vivien warns, someone even more dangerous is pulling the strings. Mother and daughter must join together to overcome their estrangement if they have any hope of preventing global catastrophe. From DC to Ohio to Hong Kong, they work to prevent the next attack, along the way decoding an ancient legend and uncovering a secret language invented by women, for women.
The Last Mandarin is an electrifying study of absolute power and voracious greed, political terror and personal conviction. But it is also an intimate examination of choice, of sacrifice, of memory and myths, both cultural and personal. It is the story of a mother and daughter, as well as a compelling international thriller about the precarious balance of power across the world, and within a family. And what happens when both break down
Links
Publisher Minotaur Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing