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Northern Girls: Life Goes On
Qian Xiaohong is born into a sleepy Hunan village, where the new China rush towards development is a mere distant rumour. A buxom, naïve sixteen-year-old, she yearns to leave behind hometown scandal, and joins the mass migration to the bustling boomtown of Shenzhen. There, she must navigate dangerous encounters with ruthless bosses, jealous wives, sympathetic hookers and corrupt policemen as she tries to find her place in the ever-evolving society. Hardship and tragedy are in no short supply as her journey takes her through a grinding succession of dead end jobs. To help her through this confusing maze, Xiaohong finds solace in the close ties she makes with the other migrant girls – the community of her fellow 'northern girls' – who quickly learn to rely on each other for humour and the enjoyment of life's simple pleasures. A beautiful coming-of-age novel, Northern Girls explores the inner lives of a generation of young, rural Chinese women who embark on life-changing journeys in search of something better.
Northern Girls
"In this, her first novel, Sheng Keyi gives voice to the experiences of China's migrant women and explores their heartrending ordeals and fleeting pleasures. Above all, however, she celebrates their strength and spirit."--Back cover.
Bapo
Nicholas Jose was Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Beijing from 1987 to 1990, at a vital moment in China’s history, and has played an important role in artistic relations between the two countries since then. The title of his new collection of stories refers to an unusual kind of Chinese painting, that tricks the eye into thinking it sees a collage of fragments. Bapo means ‘eight broken’, where eight is a Chinese lucky number and ‘broken’ suggests that luck has run out, though there’s another kind of luck in simply surviving and holding it all together, less glorious maybe, but not so bad in the long run. The stories feature a cast of characters, artists, diplomats, entrepreneurs, refugees, families at the crossroads. They are all held by the past in some way, its hope, idealism, romance, adventure – and aware of its susceptibility to corruption, disappointment or manipulation.
Wild Fruit
Xiaohan, the youngest daughter, shares her family's unconventional life and exposes the depth of what it means to live in contemporary China today. Through sketches dedicated to each person in the Li clan, she shows how those close to her are forced to find new ways to survive, like wild fruit falling from a tree.
Silence of the Chagos
Based on a true, still-unfolding story, Silence of the Chagos is a powerful exploration of cultural identity, the concept of home, and above all the neverending desire for justice. Shenaz Patel draws on the lives of exiled Chagossians in this tragic example of 20th century political oppression. Every afternoon a woman in a red headscarf walks to the end of the quay and looks out over the water, fixing her gaze “back there”: to Diego Garcia, one of the small islands forming the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean. With no explanation, no forewarning, and only an hour to pack their belongings, the Chagossians are deported to Mauritius. Officials tell her that the island is “closed”...
Catch the Rabbit
‘Two young women plunging into post-war Bosnia like two Alices into Wonderland . . . smart, energetic, passionate, announcing a major talent.’ - Aleksandar Hemon Sara hasn’t seen or heard from her childhood best friend, Lejla, in years. She’s comfortable with her life in Dublin, with her partner, their avocado plant, and their naturist neighbour. But when Lejla calls her and demands she come home to Bosnia, Sara finds that she can’t say no. What begins as a road trip becomes a journey through the past, as the two women set off to find Armin, Lejla’s brother who disappeared towards the end of the Bosnian War. Presumed dead by everyone else, only Lejla and Sara believed Armin was s...
Dry Milk
John Lee is a lonely and increasingly misanthropic Chinese migrant who has lived in Auckland for thirty years, running a second-hand junk shop while maintaining a relationship of disdain with his disabled wife. When he becomes infatuated with a young international student who lodges in their house, and puts his life savings behind a scheme to export powdered milk to China, the dubious balance with which he has held his life together comes apart, and feelings of alienation and humiliation begin to spiral out of control. Dry Milk is a work of fiction that gives a perspective on Antipodean culture unlike any other, told from the point of view of an immigrant alienated from his new home, both its New Zealand and Chinese communities. Huo’s novella is a stark portrait of social isolation, and of the experience of the emigrants that left China in the period after the Cultural Revolution. Capturing the voice of China’s post-1980s literary generation, the book is written with an obsessive intensity that echoes Patricia Highsmith, Elias Canetti and the short novels of Elena Ferrante.
Fields of White: Penguin Special
Jason is a thirty-something, white-collar salesman on the verge of a mid-life crisis. The threat of redundancy and the demands of the multiple women in his life - wife, mistress and a business client with whom professional and personal boundaries have begun to blur – compound the symptoms of a mysterious affliction that appears to be taking over his body. When the seemingly separate strands of Jason's life start to converge, he discovers that the reality he knows and commands never existed in the first place . . . From Man Asian Literary Prize nominee Sheng Keyi comes an offbeat and true-to-life tale of the inconstancy of modern life.
In Time, Out of Place
You Jin brings to her travel writing the same wit evident in her fiction. Whether she is trekking through the Amazon rainforest, exploring the caves of Granada with gypsy pickpockets, visiting a farm stay in Tasmania, or negotiating for a horsehair-lacquer cup in Myanmar, she is adept at weaving a whimsical incident into a compelling and amusing narrative. Her trademark spirited humour brings to life the vastness of the globe we inhabit, as well as more intimate encounters with the people she meets along the way.
Wild Fruit
Xiaohan, the youngest daughter, shares her family’s unconventional life and exposes the depth of what it means to live in contemporary China today. Through sketches dedicated to each person in the Li clan, she shows how those close to her are forced to find new ways to survive, like wild fruit falling from a tree.
