Unquiet Heart Soliloquy

A realist novel about dating apps and unrequited online love, set in fast-moving, modern Shanghai

In modern-day China, a man has travelled to Shanghai on impulse to meet his online lover Luna, but she refuses to see him and soon disappears without a trace. He tries to forget her by immersing himself in dating apps, and also learns to appreciate the nuances within everyday Chinese life while he adjusts himself to mainland China as a member of the greater overseas Chinese diaspora.

As the seasons change he falls in love with a budding photographer named Sofia, but with traces of Luna constantly reappearing in his life, will he ever find a way out of his unquiet predicament?

Unquiet Heart Soliloquy is Dano Chow's debut novel, a confessional account of one's turning to dating apps for comfort in times of loneliness, in the hope that one casual outing after another will somehow be enough to fulfil a generational desire for intimacy.