Shalama is a Russian Jewish girl, born in 1928 in the Chinese city of Harbin, whose life tracks one of the great rescues and rebirths of the 20th century - the move of Jewish people from Europe to Harbin, then on to Shanghai and eventually the United States. Harbin was a remote town close to the Russian border which in a few years had changed from a fishing village into a sophisticated European city thanks to an influx of Jews escaping pogroms and White Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks. Many thousands, including Shalama's parents, crowded into the city and many of them prospered. But the Japanese occupied Harbin in the 1930s, and at twelve years old, Shalama and her family moved southwards to the international port city of Shanghai. There, Shalama went to the Shanghai Jewish School, became a typist, changed her name to Shirley, met and married an Austrian Jew named Paul Hoffmann and remade her life.

Told in story form by Shirley's daughter, Shalama is a moving epic that captures the feel of those dangerous times when the world had lost its moorings. After the family's escape from Shanghai, after the Communist takeover, Paul and Shirley moved to the United States, but towards the end of her life, an unexpected turn of events brought both enlightenment and closure to questions that had remained a mystery throughout her lifetime.