Geling Yan, the acclaimed Chinese novelist and screenwriter, is perhaps best known to English speakers for her novella 13 Flowers of Nanjing, which was made into the movie Flowers of War.

Whether or not Yan wrote her latest, much longer novel Little Aunt Crane, with a movie adaptation in mind, it has a cinematic feel, with a sweeping timeframe, multiple themes, and a fast-paced plot with a series of dramatic incidents. These include: one woman losing her baby in ghastly circumstances, and another one giving birth on a mountainside; a suspicious death that is probably murder; battles between different factions in a factory; a character reappearing decades after she was last heard of, to create a hopeful ending.

The novel is span across forty odd turbulent years, from the Japanese withdrawal from Manchuria after World War II, through the famine of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Cultural Revolution, and on to the years after the downfall of the Gang of Four.

The opening chapters provide an interesting window onto an episode of Chinese and Japanese history which is perhaps not well known in the English-speaking world. As the Chinese advance, to retake Manchuria, many of the Japanese settlers are trapped. To some, death seems preferable to capture, and the elders of Sakito village order the villagers to die together, in an act of mass suicide. Only one person escapes, 16-year-old Tatsuru, pretty, resourceful, and destined to become one of the three main protagonists of the novel. The other two protagonists are Zhang Jian, and his wife, Xiaohuan.

Tatsuru is captured by Chinese human traffickers. An act of Japanese brutality has left Xiaohuan unable to have children. Zhang Jian and his parents need somebody to bear children, in order to continue the family line. They purchase Tatsuru, who soon becomes known as Duohe, in order that she might provide them with descendants, preferably sons. This she quickly does; soon Zhang Jian is father to a girl, and twin boys. Duohe continues to live openly with Zhang Jian and Xioahuan for the next several decades, during which time she is passed off as Xioahuan's mentally deficient sister, until, at last, she is able to return to Japan.

Zhang Jian, Xiaohuan and Duohe thus form that trickiest of shapes, a triangle, and Yan's exploration of the shifting allegiances between them drives various investigations: into the nature of family; of obligation; of forgiveness; of how people retain, or fail to retain both hope and the will to live, and also their own compassion, or humanity, in the most horrifically trying circumstances; of how children come to understand the mistakes of their parents; of what it means to live an honest life.

Of these various themes, the one Yan most consistently returns to is perhaps her exploration of the nature of family. This begins with the loss of a family: "A grenade exploded next to Tatsuru's mother, and when the smoke had cleared Tatsuru no longer had a mother, brother or sister. Her father had died in battle in the Philippines the year before. Perhaps it was a blessing that her present danger did not leave Tatsuru at leisure to ponder her newly orphaned condition."

Later, after Tatsuru has been sold into what will become her new family, and has become Duohe, she gets lost, or is abandoned by Zhang Jian. He and Xiaohuan are arguing about whether to try to find her. Xiaohuan tells her husband: "Even if our family isn't comfortable it is still a family. However uncomfortable it is, it's still her home."

Much later still she thinks: "Everyone in this family held it together, and if any of them were to take themselves off the whole thing would collapse... Isn't it too late now to start dividing up who was who? You could no longer tell them apart."

The idea is repeated at the very end of the novel, when Zhang Jian, dying, and now in Japan with Duohe, writes to Xiaohuan, who is still in China, that the three of them "could not do without each other, they had fought and quarreled for a lifetime, but they had all fought themselves into a single lump of flesh and bone."

The twists and turns of Yan's intricate plot will surely keep readers turning the pages. And despite the sprawling nature of her novel, she does always seem to be in control of her material – perhaps a little too much in control, in places – as sometimes, some of her characters do seem to think and act for her convenience, rather than for their own.

Xioahuan, in particular, often seems to think and behave in ways that suit Yan, rather than in the manner of a woman who is unable to have children thanks to enemy aggression, and who is then forced to live with an enemy woman, who becomes her husband's other, unofficial wife, and bears his children, and with whom, eventually, he falls in love.

Zhang Jian and Duohe are at one point almost caught in flagrantea at the factory where Zhang Jian works. Duohe gets away, but Zhang Jian is hauled in front of a committee to explain himself. One of his friends, Xiao Peng, rushes to fetch Xiohuan, who makes it clear she is prepared to pretend Zhang Jian had been with her, his lawful spouse, and not, as Xiao Peng correctly assumes, Duohe. Xiao Peng does not believe what Xiaohuan is telling him but "he did not trust his understanding of Xioahuan's character: it was impossible that she would make a concession of this kind for another woman, not even for her own sister."

This doubt is one likely to be shared by readers. The translation, by Esther Tyldesley, reads fluently. Yan provides some well-observed descriptions: "on filthy feet spots of compacted dirt look like the scales of a snake", an image that is compellingly precise.

Putting aside occasional quibbles about credibility, this is an interesting and challenging novel, with the ambition to match its sweeping scale.

Rosie Milne runs Asian Books Blog

Reprinted with permission from The Asian Review of Books