The Walking Boy
The Walking Boy comes out this fall. I call it a trans-historical novel, because it's a quirky and queer novel set in early 8th Century China, during the Tang dynasty. A young innocent Baoshi is sent on a pilgrimage by his master Harelip to search for his former friend Ardhanari. Baoshi is both male and female; "he" is the Walking Boy in this novel. This term refers to acolytes who set off on an assigned pilgrimage. Baoshi encounters a host of fascinating characters, to finally get caught up in the intrigues of Nü Huang's court. "Nü Huang" means Female Emperor and refers to Wu Zhao, the only woman to have ever crowned herself Emperor after being an empress, in China's long imperial history. I had to do a lot of research, and I've used a lot of facts in this novel, but I've written it all in the present tense, as if it's happening in your imagination as you read/create it. I use some classical Chinese conventions, such as a prologue where the "author" introduces herself then signs off with a sobriquet/moniker. I had fun writing the replies to some poems in the novel, another nod to structure in some classical Chinese novels.
Check the occasional entries in the News section for little tidbits of info and background into the writing of this novel.
This Place Called Absence
This, my second book — and first novel — came to me first as poetic fragments. The writing quickly evolved into prose narrative. I didn't want to admit to myself that I was writing a novel until I hit page 110. It was exciting but difficult to enter such a dark, interior psychological landscape, using 4 women's voices. I think of the novel in musical terms. Four voices weaving through the book, motifs or themes repeated and improvised by each woman. Two of them are ah ku, sex-trade workers in early 20th Century Singapore. Wu Lan, a contemporary protagonist originally from Singapore, discovers some facts about these women in a book in the Vancouver Public Library, and starts to imagine their lives. She and her mother — the fourth voice — are dealing with the suicide of her father. A number of readers have understood the optimism beneath the outer gritty realism, as well as the emphasis on the power of the spirit and of the imagination to enable us to transcend suffering. I found myself incorporating some Chinese characters once again. In particular, the symbol for "contemplation" introduces the book. W.P. Kinsella referred to This Place Called Absence as "beautifully written, hauntingly poetic, with a cast of memorable characters, a tale that deals with the fragility of life, love and family ties." (Books in Canada, July 2001).
The Colours of Heroines
A collection of poems that I wrote over a period of about six years. George Woodcock, in his review of The Colours of Heroines, described me as "a memory writer of almost Proustian intensity, who has lived variously and remembered astonishingly." (BC Bookworld, Summer 1995). The poems include recollections of life growing up in Singapore, racism, the taints of colonialism, and violence in the home. There's experimentation in long poems such as Water, the first time in my writing that I used Chinese characters; or Translating Fortune: Cookie Wisdom where I deconstruct and subvert fortune cookie sayings. The poetry project I'm working on these days, Roadbook: Suite of Hands, is quite a departure from the earlier work simply because I've changed and so has my poetic voice. Some excerpts from this work-in-progress appear in an anthology called Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets (Persea: 2005).