Ge Yan

Dorothy Tse

"An approachable introduction to contemporary speculative fiction from China and Hong Kong that touches on issues of urbanization, sexuality, and propaganda"--

Speculative Chinese Fiction

That We May Live

With your face covered, sneaking into a city you thought you knew, are you still yourself? Or have you crossed to another world, where the streets are unpredictable and the people strangers, where you might at any moment run into some unknown dream version of yourself?

In a city called Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. He has a dull marriage and a lackluster career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition: a music box ballerina named Aliss who has tantalizingly sprung to life. Guided by his mysterious friend Owlish and inspired by an inexplicably familiar painting, Q embarks on an all-consuming love affair with Aliss, oblivious to the protests spreading across the university that have left his classrooms all but empty.

The mountainous city of Nevers is itself a mercurial character with concrete flesh, glimmering new construction, and “colonial flair.” Having fled there as a child refugee, Q thought he knew the faces of the city and its people, but Nevers is alive with secrets and shape-shifting geographies. The winner of a 2021 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, “Owlish” is a fantastically eerie debut novel that is also a bold exploration of life under oppressive regimes.

A Novel

Owlish

Dorothy Tse's stories sometimes start in a vein of innocent realism, but she invariably brings us up short with an abrupt twist: dreamscapes descend and the pages become populated with ever weirder characters. Not only do strange things happen, they are juxtaposed in ways that confound all logical expectations. This collection of 13 short stories is not for the faint-hearted -- violent and sensual elements abound and limbs, even heads, are lopped off with alarming regularity. Yet scenes are sometimes so outrageous that they make us laugh, and Dorothy's bold thematic and narrative experiments yield results that are alternately beguiling and deeply disturbing.

Snow and Shadow

Natascha Bruce

The city you grew up in is gone, as if sunk to the bottom of the ocean. So much has vanished with it – counterfeit watches, streets echoing with the sound of stilettos, and even some of your classmates and teachers. Then the disappearances come closer to home. Your mother joins a housewives’ protest over fake lotus roots only to be turned into a statue by the police. Your father is quietly absorbed into the enormous TV gifted by the government, reappearing in the background of soap operas. And didn’t you once have a little sister, before she flew away? As the police go undercover and transform your neighbourhood into a violent labyrinth you can no longer navigate, where does this leave you? Lucid, nightmarish and indelible, City Like Water is a wondrous tale of a city not so different from your own.

City Like Water

Hong Kong (nel romanzo “Never”) è la protagonista silenziosa di questo romanzo in cui l’apatia di una società si scontra con l’orrore di vivere sotto un regime totalitario. Un romanzo allegorico, un grido silenzioso da una città unica al mondo, dove la libertà si fa ogni giorno più rarefatta. Il professor Q è un docente universitario di mezza età, frustrato sul lavoro e insoddisfatto della sua vita matrimoniale con Maria. Le sue giornate monotone, però, prendono una piega inaspettata quando incontra Eilis – la ballerina del carillon – di cui si innamorerà perdutamente e che lo risucchierà in un sorprendente turbinio di emozioni. E così, spronato da Fugo, un misterioso amico di gioventù, il cinquantenne professore si ritroverà invischiato in una relazione sentimentale totalizzante e obnubilato dal desiderio per la bambola Eilis, tanto da perdere di vista ciò che accade attorno a lui, dalle proteste studentesche alle insidiose forze che incombono sulla città. Ambientato a Never, una località fittizia che ricorda in maniera evidente Hong Kong e che, come quest’ultima, è tornata alla “madrepatria” dopo essere stata una colonia occidentale, il romanzo tocca temi universali e di stringente attualità, quali l’apatia delle società contemporanee e il pericolo rappresentato dai totalitarismi. La fervida immaginazione di Dorothy Tse partorisce una storia incredibile e dal ritmo concitato, un susseguirsi di eventi che la sua penna racconta con uno stile vigoroso e incisivo. Il professore e la ballerina del carillon è una fiaba moderna e sovversiva, dai toni cupi, dove la realtà cede il passo ai sogni e questi ultimi si trasformano in incubi. Eppure, è anche un romanzo illuminato da un flebile spiraglio di luce, antidoto contro l’indolenza e l’indifferenza.

Dorothy Tse

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