Born in Shanghai in 1926 to Russian Jewish parents who had fled the Bolshevik Revolution, Liliane Willens was a "stateless" girl in the world's most cosmopolitan city. But when the Far East explodes in conflict, the family's uncertain status puts them at risk of being stranded, or worse. Stateless in Shanghai recounts Willens' life and trials in a China collapsing under the weight of foreign invaders and civil war, and the problems that ensued in the new era that followed.