Peter Ho Davies

When does sorrow turn to shame? When does love become labor? When does chancebecome choice? And when does fact become fiction?

A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself

From the best-selling, acclaimed author ofThe Welsh Girl comes a groundbreaking, provocative new novel recasting American history through the lives of Chinese Americans. Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured,Tell It Slant reimagines the traditional multigenerational novel through the lens of immigrant experience. The family institution is revered in Chinese culture, but the historical reality of Chinese Americans has seen family bonds denied, fragmented, or imperiled.Tell It Slant uses this history--from the bachelor society of the gold rush era to laws against interracial marriage to the recent wave of adopted baby girls--to create a portrait of a community whose line of descent is broken, yet which has tenaciously persisted, as much through love as by blood. Through four lives--a railroad baron's valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor, Hollywood's first Chinese movie star, a victim of a hate crime that mobilizes Asian Americans, and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption--this novel captures and capsizes over a century of our history. Building fact into fiction, spinning fiction around fact, Davies answers Emily Dickinson's call toTell It Slant, finding therein a greater truth. He uses each of these stories--three inspired by real historical characters--to examine the process of becoming not only Chinese American, but American.

Tell It Slant

At the height of World War II, a forbidden romance blossoms between seventeen-year-old Esther Evans, the daughter of a Welsh shepherd, and Karsten Simmering, a troubled young German POW, who questions what he has been fighting for.

The Welsh Girl

"Inhabiting four lives--a railroad baron's valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor, Hollywood's first Chinese movie star, a hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes Asian Americans, and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption--this novel captures over a century of our history through the immigrant family experience"--

The Fortunes

The fifteenth volume in the Art of series takes an expansive view of revision—on the page and in life In The Art of Revision: The Last Word, Peter Ho Davies takes up an often discussed yet frequently misunderstood subject. He begins by addressing the invisibility of revision—even though it’s an essential part of the writing process, readers typically only see a final draft, leaving the practice shrouded in mystery. To combat this, Davies pulls examples from his novels The Welsh Girl and The Fortunes, as well as from the work of other writers, including Flannery O’Connor, Carmen Machado, and Raymond Carver, shedding light on this slippery subject. Davies also looks beyond literature to work that has been adapted or rewritten, such as books made into films, stories rewritten by another author, and the practice of retconning in comics and film. In an affecting frame story, Davies recounts the story of a violent encounter in his youth, which he then retells over the years, culminating in a final telling at the funeral of his father. In this way, the book arrives at an exhilarating mode of thinking about revision—that it is the writer who must change, as well as the writing. The result is a book that is as useful as it is moving, one that asks writers to reflect upon themselves and their writing.

The Last Word

The Art of Revision

Art of Revision

'Witty, intelligent . . . definitely a name to watch.' Scotland on Sunday ..In his new collection, prize-winning author Peter Ho Davies takes as his starting point the essential imbalance of the relationship between parent and child. Drawing on the author's own cross-cultural inheritance, these stories range across a series of settings and backgrounds. From a Chinese son gambling with professional mourners to a mixed-race couple who experience a close encounter with an alien being, Ho Davies' characters share an instantly recognizable sense of displacement - these are children of one century, adults of the next - caught between debts to their parents and what they owe their offspring. ..Sharply observed and compassionate, Equal Love imparts the talent of a truly original writer, whose work has already earned comparison with that of Raymond Carver, James Joyce and V. S. Naipaul. ..'Ho Davies is compassionate, but never mawkish; witty without being unkind. His first collection, The Ugliest House in the World, won prizes, and it's easy to see why: he picks his way through fragile family ties with an almost feline agility and grace.' Cressida Connolly, Literary Review ..'In a bleak, cold world, these very humane stories are a flag for sunrise.' Russell Celyn Jones, The Times ..Smartly written and sweetly subversive.' Independent ..'A set of delicate variations on the theme that love brings pain.Davies'.writing is poignant and humane.' Sunday Times ..This is Ho Davies on top form; funny, touching, off-beat. Like his first collection, Equal Love deserves the laurels.' Literary Review

Equal Love

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for literature that confronts racism and examines diversity Winner of the 2017 Chautauqua Prize Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize A New York Times Notable Book "Riveting and luminous...Like the best books, this one haunts the reader well after the end."—Jesmyn Ward “[A] complex, beautiful novel . . . Stunning.”—NPR, Best Books of 2016 “Intense and dreamlike . . . filled with quiet resonances across time.”—The New Yorker Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, The Fortunes recasts American history through the lives of Chinese Americans and reimagines the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience. Inhabiting four lives—a railroad baron’s valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor; Hollywood’s first Chinese movie star; a hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes the Asian American community; and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption—this novel captures and capsizes over a century of our history, showing that even as family bonds are denied and broken, a community can survive—as much through love as blood. “A prophetic work, with passages of surpassing beauty.”—Joyce Carol Oates, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award citation “A poignant, cascading four-part novel . . . Outstanding.”—David Mitchell, Guardian “The most honest, unflinching, cathartically biting novel I’ve read about the Chinese American experience.”—Celeste Ng

A Novel

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for literature that confronts racism and examines diversity Winner of the 2017 Chautauqua Prize Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize A New York Times Notable Book "Riveting and luminous...Like the best books, this one haunts the reader well after the end."--Jesmyn Ward " A] complex, beautiful novel . . . Stunning."--NPR, Best Books of 2016 "Intense and dreamlike . . . filled with quiet resonances across time."--The New Yorker Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, The Fortunes recasts American history through the lives of Chinese Americans and reimagines the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience. Inhabiting four lives--a railroad baron's valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor; Hollywood's first Chinese movie star; a hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes the Asian American community; and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption--this novel captures and capsizes over a century of our history, showing that even as family bonds are denied and broken, a community can survive--as much through love as blood. "A prophetic work, with passages of surpassing beauty."--Joyce Carol Oates, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award citation "A poignant, cascading four-part novel . . . Outstanding."--David Mitchell, Guardian "The most honest, unflinching, cathartically biting novel I've read about the Chinese American experience."--Celeste Ng

A collection of short stories examines the imbalance of love between parents and children and the changing roles of the generations.

Stories

Short fiction from the author of The Fortunes and The Welsh Girl—“a writer to behold with real pleasure” (Gish Jen). In tales that travel from Coventry to Kuala Lumpur, from the past to the present, and from hilarity to tragedy, American bandits herd ostriches in Patagonia, British soldiers confront Zulus in Natal, and John Wayne leads the way for local revolutionaries in Southeast Asia. These are stories in which small lives are affected by consequential events. In “A Union,” a prolonged strike at a Welsh slate quarry plays mystifying tricks of time on a couple expecting a baby. In “The Silver Screen,” ragtag rebels join a communist revolution with all the flair of the Keystone Kops. In the heartbreaking title story, a rural community in North Wales copes with the accidental death of a child and learns the reaches of guilt. With its deep vein of humanism and pointed humor, this collection was a winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys and PEN/Macmillan Awards, and includes two entries that were selected for The Best American Short Stories. “A quiet clarity and an all-encompassing empathy that is without borders.” —Elle “Astounding . . . Peter Ho Davies has left a unique, definitive footprint in the soil of contemporary short fiction.” —The Washington Post

Peter Ho Davies

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