"Owlish". Nicky Harman reviews a new novel by Dorothy Tse, translated by Natascha Bruce

 

Owlish is the story of Professor Q, a university lecturer in the city of Nevers. He is not a happy man: his wife refuses intimacy with him, his students protest, then disappear, and he is visited by sinister authority figures. He takes refuge in a fantasy world and his life is briefly illuminated by his passion for Aliss, a doll who is introduced to him by the mysterious Owlish. But as the story progresses, the sanctuary he has found for their love affair, an abandoned church, is raided, the doll is destroyed, and his wife Maria reclaims him. In the final pages, it is not the forces of political repression but Maria and their doctor who seal his fate: ‘Professor Q thought of the sky-blue pills he would no longer have any reason to take and almost felt like laughing…He was fast asleep, his upper body collapsed onto the sofa. Maria came to stand over him, regarding his body as she might a placid lake. The sleeping pill had worked quickly…’

This novel draws the reader in on many levels. It is suspenseful: can the Prof find a new life? What will happen to the doll? It is political; there is no attempt to disguise the parallels between the fictitious island, its communities and languages, and present-day Hong Kong – in that respect, it’s wonderfully cheeky. And the language is beautiful – more on that later.

Make It New: A warm welcome for Gaudy Boy's 'New Singapore Poetries'

A gathering of new names

One July evening, I took the chance to ask Jee Leong Koh – an editor of the new Gaudy Boy anthology New Singapore Poetries – what exactly was ‘new’ about the selection, slated for a pre-Christmas release in December 2022. The list of poets who’d made the cut had just been announced, and though all qualified on the same basis of having published not more than one poetry collection, some (including Jee’s co-editor Marylyn Tan, also a winner of the Singapore Literature Prize) were by now firmly established in the narrow stratosphere of Singapore writing.   

The Visible Invisibles: Stories of Migrant Workers in Asia, guest post by Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu

 

Featuring a careful curation of unconventional yet universal life stories from a diverse cast of characters, The Visible Invisibles: Stories of Migrant Workers in Asia offers a human connection to the undocumented lives of migrant workers across Asia, presenting stories of adventure, love, hope, loss, guilt and redemption. It is written by an inter-racial migrant couple coming from India and China who have played a foundational role in giving voices to migrant workers across Asia and Africa through acclaimed platforms such as Migrant Poetry Competitions and the Global Migrant Festival.

Shivaji Das is the author of four critically acclaimed travel, art and business books. He has been actively involved in migrant issues and is the conceptualizer and organizer for the acclaimed Migrant Worker and Refugee Poetry Contests in Singapore, Malaysia and Kenya and is the founder and director of the Global Migrant Festival. He was born and brought up in the north-eastern province of Assam in India, but is now a Singapore citizen.

Yolanda Yu’ s Neighbor’s Luck, a collection of short stories, was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Award 2020. She is a co-organizer of the Singapore Migrant Worker Poetry Contest and Global Migrant Festival, also an event host and coordinator for outreach for the Chinese migrant worker community. Born in North-Eastern China, Yolanda moved to Singapore on scholarship in 1998 and has been living there since then. 

So, over to Shivaji and Yolanda…

Wuxia and xianxia, guest post from Alice Poon

Alice Poon is currently based in Vancouver. After a childhood spent devouring Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, Alice has, over the years, fed herself a steady diet of modern wuxia / xianxia and Chinese history and mythology masterpieces.

Since the release of her two historical Chinese novels, The Green Phoenix and Tales of Ming Courtesans, nostalgia for the magical world of wuxia and xianxia has spurred her to write in the Chinese fantasy genre.

Set in a world of human conflicts, fantastical martial arts, sorcery and celestial magic, Alice’s debut fantasy, The Heavenly Sword, follows a martial maiden’s heartbreaking adventures in her quest for love and justice. The goddess Chang’e is sent to the mortal world to stop the Sky Wolf Zhu Di’s plans to usurp the throne. Reborn as Tang Sai’er, a simple village girl, her celestial mission requires all that Sai’er can give, but in order to protect her family and the village people from the effects of Zhu Di’s brutal civil war, she must also fight a battle against her growing feelings for a member of the evil tyrant’s court. When Sai’er and her allies pit themselves against the wicked new Emperor and other adversaries including the vicious Green Dragon, Sai’er has to enlist the help of immortals. But even with their help, she finds that her dreams are on a collision course with her mission.

You may of course be wondering, what are wuxia and xianxia? Over to Alice…

 

Asian Books Blog is closed from today, December 17, until January 30 2023 - after Chinese New Year. Happy reading!  If you celebrate Christmas, happy Christmas!  Here's to 2023 and to the Year of the  Rabbit!  See you in both the new solar year, and the new lunar one. 

The Forgotten Promise, guest post by Paula Greenlees

UK-based Paula Greenlees lived in Singapore during the late 1980s. She fell in love with Southeast Asia and tried to travel as much as possible around the region and beyond - travelling down a crocodile infested river in Australia with a baby is something she won’t forget! 

Her second novel, The Forgotten Promise, is told through the points of view of two Eurasian women, Ella and Noor. Ella, is evacuated to England, a country that is alien and hostile to her.

Malaya, 1920: Ella and Noor make a promise in the shadows of the jungle. A promise that life won't let them easily keep. Malaya, 1941: Ella is running her late father's tin mine in the Kledang hills, while Noor works as her cook. When the war that felt so far away suddenly arrives on their doorstep, Ella is torn from her family. Her daughter Grace is left in Noor's care as Japanese soldiers seize the mine. Ella is forced to make an impossible choice that takes her to England, thousands of miles from home. She is desperate to be reunited with her loved ones. But will the life she returns to be anything like the life she left behind?

Here, Paula discusses how family memories, history, and the experience of living in Singapore inspired her novels…

Chinese Movie Magazines: From Charlie Chaplin to Chairman Mao

 Chinese cinema has a long history, as well as the fandom around movies within China. Much like its Western and Japanese counterparts, the Chinese created magazines around film, stretching back to the 1920s. The book Chinese Movie Magazines: From Charlie Chaplin to Chairman Mao by Paul Fonoroff catalogs this unique and unexplored subculture.