公共租界在石黑一雄的小說《上海孤兒》中扮演著非常重要的角色:淞滬會戰之前的租界是生長于上海的英國著名偵探班克斯的精神家園,班克斯母親投身反鴉片運動為旅居上海的英國人披上了正義的外衣;戰時的租界成為所有人心目中的安全港灣,而蘇州河對岸戰火正酣的閘北則是龍潭虎穴。戰前的租界被上海民眾視為"外國人的城市",中國人在自己的土地上備受包括英國在內的列強的欺凌,但戰時的公共租界也為躲避戰亂的中國人提供了庇護。1937年11月至1941年12月間未被日軍占領的上海租界地區被稱為孤島,孤島和石黑一雄小說中的孤兒遙相呼應,孕育著一種十分復雜的、風云變幻中的上海的家園政治。

The International Settlement plays a very important role in Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans. Prior to the Japanese assault on Shanghai in 1937, the International Settlement served as the homeland of Christopher Banks, the Shanghai-born British detective. Banks’ mother’s anti-opium campaign justified the presence of British expatriates in Shanghai. In wartime Shanghai, the Settlement became a safe haven for all. Chapei, the very place of heavy fighting on the other bank of Suchow Creek, became an inferno for British expatriates. In Chinese people’s eyes, the prewar Settlement was "foreigners’ city", in which Chinese people were bullied and humiliated by imperialists headed by the British. In wartime Shanghai, however, the Settlement became the sanctuary of Chinese refugees. The unoccupied area in Shanghai was known as Gudao(solitary island) from November 1937 to December 1941. Gudao, together with Gu’er(orphan), represented very sophisticated politics of home in tumultuous Shanghai.