Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. So a lot of times when immigrants come to the U.S., they'll

change their names to make it a little easier for Westerners. You're welcome, by the way. So, like,

my dad's name is Bachter, but outside the house, his name was Rudy, which is so funny to me. To this day, I have no

idea why or how he picked that name, and I'm not even sure he remembers. But ask anyone who's

changed their name for any reason, and a name isn't just a name. It's a whole identity, a way of presenting yourself to the world.

Author Melissa Fu talks about that in today's interview.

Her debut novel is called Peach Blossom Spring, and in it, she's got a character named

Renchu who gets to the States and starts going by Henry.

But as she tells NPR's Elsa Chang, he doesn't just go by Henry. He becomes Henry.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

There's an ancient Chinese story, first told by a poet more than a thousand years ago,

about a place called

peach blossom spring. It's a paradise full of peach trees bursting with clouds of blooms.

A fisherman stumbles upon this magical place, which is removed from all the social and political

problems his world is so familiar with. And he must decide whether to stay

in this wondrous place or return to where he came from. Well, Peach Blossom Spring is now the

title of a new novel by Melissa Fu, set many centuries later, a story about three generations

of a Chinese family trying to decide

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