Successful psychologist Wu Lan begins reading old journals to find the reasons behind her father's suicide, and discovers the story of young Lee Ah Choi, sold into prostitution, and her affair with runaway Chow Chat Mui, while her mother Mahmee comes to terms with the death of her husband and the loss of her daughter to a different culture, in a novel that interconnects the past and present lives of four extraordinary women. 25,000 first printing.

This Place Called Absence

Kwa, Lydia

Literature & Fiction

Kensington Pub. Corp

Shares the stories of four Chinese women from disparate backgrounds, including psychologist Wu Lan, who finds herself unable to shake the remnants of her traditional Singapore upbringing and who is tormented by her father's apparent suicide. A first novel. Original. 10,000 first printing.

Lydia Kwa's voice is drenched in memory. Speaking at several junctures, both Singapore-born and Vancouver-habituated, her poetry carries the pain and historic wealth of her passage. It murmurs stories, laconic, profound, stories that tell whole shapes of lives in a few lines. Family anecdotes, fragments of intimacy, life stories of friends - these poems open windows onto the compulsions that form inner landscapes. Equally at hom ein a finely cadenced erotic lyric or candid and multi-layered prose, her writing resonates well beyond the edge of the page.""- Daphne Marlatt

Colours of Heroines, The

Poetry

Women's Press (UK)

The Walking Boy is a quest novel set in early eighth-century Tang Dynasty China, in the final days of the rule of the first Female Emperor Wu Zhao. The ailing hermit monk Harelip sends his disciple Baoshi on a pilgrimage from Mount Hua to Chang’an, the Western capital; Baoshi is the “walking boy” charged with locating Harelip’s missing former lover Ardhanari. Baoshi lives with a secret only his Master knows, and he is filled with fears of being discovered. On his journey, Baoshi crosses paths with both commoners and imperial officials, as well as others who take delight in their queer identities; in doing so, he is released powerfully from his past shame.  Lydia Kwa's novel is a book of quiet subversion, upending classical Chinese tropes with contemporary ideas around gender and feminism. Filled with psychological complexities, magic and poetic allusions to classical Chinese literature, The Walking Boy explores the intrigue of inner alchemy while exorcising the ghosts of history.

The Walking Boy (Qhuanqi Trilogy, 2)

United States

Arsenal Pulp Press

Set in 8th century China during the Tang Dynasty, The Walking Boy is a vivid and compelling novel inspired by true historical events during the final years of the reign of the countrys only female emperor. Abandoned as a young child to the care of an aging hermit monk, Baoshi lives a simple and pious life in an isolated mountain shack. Although called a boy, Baoshi carries with him a secret only his master knows: he was born both male and female. When he is just sixteen, the young disciple is sent on a quest to find his masters former lover. So begins the walking boys journey to Changan, the ancient Western Capital and the epicentre of the Tang Dynasty, ruled by the bitter and aging Female Emperor. Baoshi soon finds himself embroiled in a ghost story set amongst the sumptuous and elaborate rituals of the palace, a decadent world of corruption and intrigue, passion and desire.Written with exquisite lyricism and boundless imagination, The Walking Boy is a contemporary re-visioning of 8th century China that employs the narrative conventions of the classical Chinese novel through the prism of a hauntingly modern story of love and longing, power and greed, and the individuals search for meaning.

The Walking Boy

Literary

Key Porter Books

Set in 8th century China during the Tang Dynasty, The Walking Boy is a vivid and compelling novel inspired by true historical events during the final years of the reign of the country's only female emperor. Abandoned as a young child to the care of an aging hermit monk, Baoshi lives a simple and pious life in an isolated mountain shack. Although called a boy, Baoshi carries with him a secret only his master knows:he was born both male and female. When he is just 16, the young disciple is sent on a quest to find his master's former lover. So begins the walking boy's journey to Chang'an, the ancient Western Capital and the epicentre of the Tang Dynasty, ruled by the bitter and aging Female Emperor. Baoshi soon finds himself embroiled in a ghost story set amongst the sumptuous and elaborate rituals of the palace, a decadent world of corruption and intrigue, passion and desire. The Walking Boy is a contemporary re-visioning of 8th century China that employs the narrative conventions of the classical Chinese novel through the prism of a hauntingly modern story of love and longing, power and greed, and the individual's search for meaning.

The Walking Boy: A Novel

Contemporary

Set in contemporary Toronto and Singapore, Pulse is the story of Natalie, a native Singaporean transplanted to Toronto’s Chinatown. When she hears the devastating news that Selim, the son of her old best friend (and former lover), has died in mysterious circumstances, she decides to return to Singapore to uncover the truth. Bound up in Selim’s story is the relationship between Natalie and her father, a domineering man whose treatment of his daughter may be the key to understanding Selim’s death.

Pulse

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kwa, Lydia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kwa, Lydia

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kwa, Lydia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

This Place Called Absence

This Place Called Absence

Colours of Heroines, The

The Walking Boy (Qhuanqi Trilogy, 2)

The Walking Boy

The Walking Boy: A Novel

Pulse