John Griffith London, born John Griffith Chaney, was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". Chun Ah Chun was first published in 1910. Ah Chun had served from his sixth to his twenty-fourth year as a slave on his uncle’s farm near Canton until he managed to escape by contracting to work for three years on a sugar plantation in Hawaii. Hard-working, very astute and doted with a second sight for investment opportunities, he has acquired not only an immense fortune and a position of great social importance in Hawaii but also a wife of mixed European origins and a family of fifteen magnificent children, all educated in the finest universities in the West. Key problems remain to be solved however: the culture gap which prevents the potentially-suitable scions of the Hawaiian upper class from marrying his half-Chinese daughters, how to ensure a peaceable old age for himself in face of the inevitable squabbling among his offspring for control of his empire, and above all how to satisfy his longing to return to the beloved China of his youth while there is still time. It will come as no surprise to know that Ah Chun rises to the challenge and finds a most satisfactory solution to all of these conundrums. Enjoy free online English audiobook “Chun Ah Chun”, a short story by Jack London.
