Borrowed Tongue
Borrowed Tongue
By Tao Yang
1986; 1989
216 pages
ISBN 962-201-381-3
This is the story of a Chinese woman confronting her past, seeking the origins of her contradictions and nightmares. The clues lead backwards, to her family and to China, to a past that is as much an obsession as a legacy, to a truth that can only be revealed by questions a daughter is not supposed to ask.
She has left behind her family home in Soochow and the mother who perhaps never wanted her, and is now something of a foreigner even to herself — foreign culture, foreign personality, foreign children. She questions her family ghosts and explores her childhood memories — in a borrowed tongue.
An affecting and unusual story about the quest for identity, this is the only Renditions title originally written in English—a borrowed tongue.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Ungrateful Star — 1
2. Miracle Beans — 9
3. Unreliable Sky — 15
4. Iron Hands — 27
5. Bleeding Chicken — 35
6. Difficult Character — 43
7. Green Hills — 53
8. Injured Ghosts — 61
9. Tablecloths and Soldiers — 67
10. Bitter Prison — 77
11. Embroidered Shoes — 85
12. Pale Petals — 95
13. Shining Teeth — 103
14. Poor Camel, Poor Donkey — 115
15. Filial Daughter — 125
16. Absent Heart — 135
17. Hidden Watchers — 147
18. Shattered Haven — 157
19. Enchanted Island — 167
20. Devil Eyes — 177
21. Drowned Jewels — 187
22. Absent Miracle — 201
Review(s)
Review(s)
'A touching story about a woman protagonist's struggle to find her identity among the different values that have been established for her.'
—World Literature Today
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