Set on the eve of the Rape of Nanjing--when Japanese troops invaded the historic capital city, massacred hundreds of thousands, and committed thousands of rapes--Nanjing 1937 is a tender and humorous story of an impossible love and a lively, detailed historical portrait of a culture on the verge of rupture.

The novel centers on the life of Ding Wenyu, a privileged, womanizing, narcissistic professor of languages, and traces the course of the affair that transforms him from outlandish rake to devoted lover. Throughout the story, Ding's often comically unabashed "romantic offensive"...