AustLit

A young woman in Venezuela encounters at an art exhibition a portrait by an Italian painter of a woman of her exact likeness. She sets out to recover the story of her grandmother, who according to family history had died during or shortly after giving birth to a daughter, the young woman's mother.

In a village on a river where an Italian company has established a gold mine, a young wife gives birth to a blue-eyed child. No one believes that she had prayed to God to give her a child with eyes like the Italian manager of the mine.

Childhood friends meet in later life and, overcoming the many years of separation, realise their love for each other.

On a cruise on the Yangtze River, the narrator has a one night affair with a fellow passenger, a Chinese woman from the village Baoping.