A Girl Like Me & other stories (enlarged edition)
A Girl Like Me & other stories (enlarged edition)
By Xi Xi
with an afterword by Stephen C. Soong
Edited by Eva Hung
1996
136 pages
ISBN 962-7255-19-X
This is an enlarged edition of the first anthology of translations from the work of Hong Kong's most distinguished fiction writer. There is in these stories a haunting, often morbid, lyricism, an intense feminine sensitivity, reacting to the unique environment of Hong Kong and its fusion of East and West, tradition and modernity. With Xi Xi, Hong Kong literature can be said to have come of age.
With three additional stories, the enlarged edition presents samples from Xi Xi’s entire writing career, ranging from the 1960s to the 1990s. It includes excerpts from Elegy for a Breast, an intensely personal account of her own battle with cancer.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
A Girl Like Me — 7
The Cold — 25
Toys — 53
Asuo — 59
Maria — 63
Cross of Gallantry — 77
Begonia — 93
The Drawer — 99
Gently Down the Stream — 103
Elegy for a Beast: excerpts — 113
Building a House: Introducing Xi Xi by Stephen C. Soong — 127
Translators — 135
Acknowledgement — 136
Review(s)
Review(s)
'A writer who deserves a place in the international library'
—Far Eastern Economic Review
'Her stories blend sophistication with an unflinching, childlike wonder.'
—Islands
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AUTHOR(s)
Xi Xi is the pen-name of the woman writer Zhang Yan. She has won a devoted following among Chinese readers in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the two decades since 1965, when her first story "Maria" (included in this collection) was published. Her growing reputation was firmly established in 1982 when her story "A Girl Like Me" was awarded the prestigious Taiwan United Daily prize for fiction.