Portrait of a Thief

"A remarkably assured debut" Sunday Times

"This is as much a novel as a reckoning." New York Times

The characters are alluring and ... engaging. So too are the emotional struggles the crew endure as they try to balance duty to family with their love for China and the need to understand their own personalities." Literary Review

"This is the heist novel we deserve. Brilliantly twisty and yet so contemplative [...] this book will continue to haunt you long after you've reached the end."

-Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of Dial A for Aunties

"Portrait of a Thief was everything I imagined and more. The writing felt close and intimate and the characters felt like portraits themselves, bursting with life and delicately human."

-Morgan Rogers, author of Honey Girl

"Grace D. Li is a virtuosic storyteller [...] the most exciting debut I've read this year [...] an intelligent page-turner that will keep you hooked until the very end."

-Lauren Wilkinson, New York Times bestselling author of American Spy

"In this slick, dazzling, debut, the stakes are high and the writing elegant. Here's a story that offers not just adventure or a reprieve from the everyday, but big dreams, big hearts, enduring friendships, and the multitudes of identities that can exist within each one of us."

-Weike Wang, author of Chemistry

"A beautiful examination of identity as children of the diaspora [...] This fast-paced heist leaves you clutching the pages and rooting for the thieves."

-Roselle Lim, author of Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune

"A lyrical and action-packed tale of yearning, connection, self-discovery, and righting wrongs, Portrait of a Thief is a unique vision of what it means to come home."

-Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author of The Violence

___

This was how things began: Boston on the cusp of fall, the Sackler Museum robbed of 23 pieces of priceless Chinese art. Even in this back room, dust catching the slant of golden, late-afternoon light, Will could hear the sirens. They sounded like a promise.

Will Chen, a Chinese American art history student at Harvard, has spent most of his life learning about the West - its art, its culture, all that it has taken and called its own. He believes art belongs with its creators, so when a Chinese corporation offers him a (highly illegal) chance to reclaim five priceless s

This is as much a novel as a reckoning New York Times
A remarkably assured debut Sunday Times
This is the heist novel we deserve. Brilliantly twisty and yet so contemplative, with characters whose complicated backgrounds color their every move, this book will continue to haunt you long after you've reached the end. Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of Dial A for Aunties
Portrait of a Thief was everything I imagined and more. The writing felt close and intimate and the characters felt like portraits themselves, bursting with life and delicately human Morgan Rogers, author of Honey Girl
Grace D. Li is a virtuosic storyteller . . . the most exciting debut I've read this year . . . an intelligent page-turner that will keep you hooked until the very end Lauren Wilkinson, New York Times bestselling author of American Spy
In this slick, dazzling, debut, the stakes are high and the writing elegant. Here's a story that offers not just adventure or a reprieve from the everyday, but big dreams, big hearts, enduring friendships, and the multitudes of identities that can exist within each one of us Weike Wang, author of Chemistry
A beautiful examination of identity as children of the diaspora . . . This fast-paced heist leaves you clutching the pages and rooting for the thieves Roselle Lim, author of Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune
A lyrical and action-packed tale of yearning, connection, self-discovery, and righting wrongs, Portrait of a Thief is a unique vision of what it means to come home Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author of The Violence
With the glitz of Crazy Rich Asians and the suspense of Ocean's Eleven, Li's debut is a fast-paced heist novel with the attendant glamour of priceless artifacts and a $50 million dollar payout Washington Post
This clever debut is an absolutely thrilling ride from start to finish Buzzfeed News
A tender and tenacious art-heist story wrapped around an intimate cultural history of extraction, Portrait of a Thief is a novel that names the unsutured wounds left by the violence of immigration, xenophobia, and diasporic longing in the lives of its Asian American characters, a story of the comradery of resistance and a testament to righteous grievance Vulture
This is an entertaining read that has fun with familiar ideas while still managing to give them interesting twists BookRiot
A cinematic heist thriller with a social conscience . . . Vivid and precisely crafted BookPage

Grace D. Li grew up in Houston, Texas and is a graduate of Duke University, where she studied biology and creative writing. She currently attends medical school at Stanford University. Portrait of a Thief is her debut novel.

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