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Books Launched at the 2003 Festival
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FICTION AND LITERATURE
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A House by the River
Sid Smith
PAN MACMILLAN
ISBN: 0330481231
Cloth, £15.99
ISBN: 0330412345
Paper, £10.99
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Sid Smith's second novel is set in the early 1900s, in a place as inaccessible, mysterious and beguiling as the setting of Something Like a House. In A House by the River, two western missionaries visit a lonely community by the river. The wife, Grace, keeps a diary, and through this the reader begins to find out about Chinese ideograms and the foundations of Christianity -- something so world-shattering that a prominent Chinese official wants it to remain suppressed...
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The Brainfever Bird
Allan Sealy
PAN MACMILLAN
ISBN: 0330412051
Cloth, £15.99
ISBN: 0330412639
Paper, £10.99
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Once a biological scientist, Lev is now a chauffeur in ‘that new Russia where physicists wash windows and engineers drive trams’. So he decides to take his somewhat lethal knowledge abroad; to offer his services to a foreign government. But on the way from the airport his taxi is stopped, and he is robbed. It is in this helpless state, alone and adrift in Delhi, that Lev meets Maya. Beautiful, ferocious and utterly original, Maya has been waiting for a man like Lev to walk into her life. But then something terrible happens - something for which the Russian scientist is blamed.
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Sacking the Stork
Kris Webb
PAN MACMILLAN
ISBN: 0732911605
Cloth, A$30.00
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Sophie presumed 'making sacrifices for your children' meant giving up Bloody Marys and champagne for nine months. When she thought about it, that is. . . But then two blue lines appear on her pregnancy test. How does a baby fit in with a hectic job, a chaotic social life, and the absence of Max, the Y chromosome in the equation, who has moved to San Francisco? -- When an unexpected business venture and a new man appear on the scene, it appears that just maybe there is life after a baby.
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City Voices: Hong Kong Writing in English, 1945 to the Present
Xu Xi & Mike Ingham (eds.), with a foreword by Louise Ho
HONG KONG UNIV. PRESS
ISBN: 0330481231
Cloth, £15.99
ISBN: 0330412345
Paper, £10.99
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City Voices is the first showcase of postwar Hong Kong literature originating in English. Fiction, poetry, essays and memoirs from more than 70 authors are featured to demonstrate 'the rich variety and vitality of the city’s literary production'. Together with work from established authors, both bilingual writers who choose to write in English and expatriate authors who have made Hong Kong their home, a section of 'New Voices' introduces the work of emerging and young writers who are part of today’s surge of new creativity.
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A Small Place in the Desert
Christopher New
ASIA 2000
ISBN: 9628783351
Cloth, HK$195/US$23
ISBN: 9628783343
Paper, HK$150/US$18
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Christopher New brings to North Africa the same historical perspicacity his earlier novels bring to South Asia and to the China coast. Summer is ending when retired schoolteachers Peter Saunders and his wife Clare arrive in Cairo to begin their guided tour of Egypt. A many-layered novel subtly balancing past and present, A Small Place in the Desert is at once a striking portrayal of self-discovery, love and loss, and an allusive and timely depiction of the troubled interface between the Western and the Muslim worlds.
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Cleaning House
Barry Kalb
ASIA 2000
ISBN: 962878336X
Cloth, HK$195/US$23
ISBN: 9628783327
Paper, HK$150/US$18
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Satirical and intelligent, Barry Kalb's debut novel Cleaning House is a hilarious look at the times in which we live and a disturbing re-statement of the old adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. As the new millennium begins, the world is a sorry sight. Yet George Ringo, the accidentally elected new Pope from Lower Fasso, is not only inept, but also too inexperienced with the Byzantine world of Vatican politics to introduce radical solutions. So whom does God turn to for help? Noah Archer, a data analyst and computer buff from California.
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The General and Mr Tu
Denis Way
ASIA 2000
ISBN: 9628783262
Cloth, HK$195/US$23
ISBN: 9628783424
Paper, HK$150/US$18
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Two men, born in the Year of the Fire Horse. According to Chinese astrology, both are destined to accumulate great wealth and power. Their paths cross for the first time, tragically, in Shanghai in 1940. Then in 1949 John Huart sails into Hong Kong, his life shattered in a war in which he rose to become a Major-General in the British Army and confronted with the challenge of rebuilding his family’s once-famous trading house. On the same day, the General’s sworn enemy, Tu Chien, steps off a junk laden with gold at Aberdeen.
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Wings of Summer: Selected Poems of Zheng Danyi
Bilingual edition, translated and with an introduction by Luo Hui
SIXTH FINGER PRESS
ISBN: 9889707519
Paper, HK$120/US$16
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Zheng Danyi’s Wings of Summer is a book of joy, irony, sorrow, exuberance, and love, in a language both colloquial and classical. "It is almost like reading from a musical score..." For some twenty years, readers of Chinese have been appreciating the poetry of Zheng Danyi, with critics considering him along the finest lyrical poet today. Now, with Wings of Summer, his unique voice can be heard by a broader international audience. An extensive publication at 336 pages, a bilingual edition of this depth and scope is rare in any country.
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NON-FICTION AND MEMOIR
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Standard Deviations
Karl Taro Greenfeld
CHAMELEON PRESS
ISBN: 9628631950
Paper, HK$89
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"I was twenty-three and I had set off Asia to become a writer, intrigued by lurid tales of booms, busts, sex, violence, magic." Karl Taro Greenfeld is now the editor of TIME Asia and this is the story of his wild ride in Asia during the last years of the twentieth century. Greenfeld is "a lively, pungent prose stylist and perceptive observer of the human mess all around him" (The Washington Post), "insightful, talented" (Newsweek) and "darkly hilarious" (The Far Eastern Economic Review).
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Brave Land
Ray Hu
ASIA 2000
ISBN: 9628783114
Paper, HK$150/US$18
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The saga of modern China is told through the voices of three generations, who were, in their own ways, caught up in their country’s revolutions and wars. Part memoir and part history, Brave Land puts a personal face on the past century of social upheaval. It is also the story of a Chinese-American’s passionate journey to reclaim his past. Along the way, Ray Hu discovered a personal mission -- to tell the fascinating, tangled history of 20th century China from the perspective of those relatives who lived it.
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YOUNG ADULT FICTION
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Monday Redux
Robert Favole
CHAMELEON PRESS
ISBN: 962863190X
Paper, HK$48
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You only get one chance. Or do you? A school is devastated by a shocking outbreak of violence. One boy realizes he could have prevented it. But he failed. He is traumatized by his failure. But then he’s given another chance - —which involves taking terrifying risks... Monday Redux is a fast-paced, roller-coaster of a story which teen readers won’t be able to put down. But it’s also a masterfully written snapshot of the drama of teenage life in a media-driven society.
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Dead Eric Gets a Virus
Nury Vittachi
CHAMELEON PRESS
ISBN: 9628631977
Paper, HK$48
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Eric Watts downloads his brain into a supercomputer. It kills him. But the copy of his brain in the computer still works. So he installs a wireless Internet connection into his body and sends it back to school. But now that he’s dead, Eric’s life just isn't the same, for him -- or his only friend Mindy... This thoughtful book deals with big issues--life, death, love, the immortality of the soul, and How To Make Friends ... but readers’ll be too busy laughing to realize.
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© 2003, Hong Kong International Literary Festival Ltd. All rights reserved.
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