Marvels of a Floating City
By Xi Xi
Edited by Eva Hung
1999, 1997
142 pages
ISBN 962-7255-18-1
Xi Xi eloquently conveys the mood of the city during the 1980s in this collection of stories. In the first half of the decade, the Chinese and British governments negotiated Hong Kong's fate, occasioning among the general population intense soul-searching and close scrutiny of their society.
The old and the new, the real and the fantastic, Western culture and local perception are skilfully woven together here to create narratives of the hopes, anger and fears which gripped the people of Hong Kong in this crucial period of their history.
'Xi Xi is now one of the most familiar and best translated of the Hong Kong writers; Marvels of a Floating City confirms her versatility in reconceptualizing that harried and hurried corner of the globe.'
—World Literature Today