XU XI 許 素 細

Nebraska University Press, American Lives Series

from the reviews

“A whirlwind, wise introduction to the complicated joys of multiculturalism, This Fish Is Fowl is intensely personal yet fully engaged with the world, celebrating our differences as well as our shared universal experiences.”—Foreword Reviews, starred

“Broad-ranging, introspective, and honest essays that reveal a fine writer's experiences, mind, and heart.”—Kirkus

praise from other writers

“There is absolutely no one like Xu Xi. To read these smart, inventive, and always surprising essays is to be given a passport to a transnational perspective the world sorely needs at this moment. Xu Xi's sense of identity: Indonesian/Chinese/American/Hong Kong is not mixed up (though she likes to label herself a 'mongrel'), but expansive. Identity for her has almost nothing to do with borders but with a kind of echolocation—sending forth her speculations on what it means to be a traveler, a daughter, a life partner, a woman in order to determine a shifting but remarkable path through geographies of being.” —Robin Hemley

“In an age of willful ignorance, parochialism, and a dominant prose style typified by misspelled tweets, Xu Xi's writing is smart, international, and fluid. She navigates smoothly between not only countries and continents but, perhaps hardest of all, family members. Here the personal isn't just political; it's global. And, most important, deeply compassionate.”—Sue William Silverman

“Explores the life of one whose shredded passport is never large enough to hold it all. Woven into skillful family story are topics ranging from the status of Dreamers in the U.S. to the 'crying city' of Hong Kong after the Occupy Movement, all dancing around the question of what it means to belong. With so many countries gripped by a new and brutal nationalism, Xu Xi reminds us there is another side—a world lived by many between a blur of borders. Part breezy, leaping memoir, part social commentary, this book adds a crucial chapter to the old story of national identity.” —Susanne Antonetta

Signal 8 Press

from the reviews 

“A keen, observant chronicler of human foibles, Xu Xi's prose is as eminently readable as ever, mostly prioritising lucidity and directness but with occasional rhetorical flourishes, and her articulation of human emotional complexity instinctively feels true to life.”  South China Morning Post June 4, 2018

“These stories will likely count for more than fictional snapshots of essential moments in Hong Kong's history, whatever the official version of that will be.” Wasifiri 

praise from other writers

“An audacious, inventive and original collection: these 'Hong Kong' stories are full of clever energy and lively strangeness.” — Gail Jones, Australia

“I read Insignificance in one gulp because it was so compelling. I loved the sophisticated wit and wry humour, the female characters who do not lend to easy stereotyping, and the sheer imaginative scope and range of the stories—from buying literal new skins, to Doghouse Rhapsodies and the ambiguous line between power and prey. Xu Xi's stories throb with fierce intelligence. They capture the history of Hong Kong and its citizens through a clear and truly original lens.”  Alice Pung, Australia

“Be prepared to see Hong Kong from the inside–its intimacies and its inhabitants' secrets are the true journey of Insignificance. But what made the book impossible for me to put down was the writing that bristles with intelligence and humor.” Krys Lee, South Korea
 

in the media

Xu speaks to Lily Rimmer of the UK's Glass Magazine

Penguin

From the reviews

“Xu's memoir is an unique take on the love-hate, hope-despair relationship that is so familiar to those who are from Hong Kong or have made this city their home.” Zolima City Magazine Aug 7, 2017

“What really opens this book to a wider audience is that it's as much about the history of Hong Kong as it is about her. And a Hong Kong that is long gone . . . For a female reader the book is a joy, told as it is by a woman who comes across as a truly free spirit.” The News Lens International Aug 2, 2017

C & R PRESS

“Xu’s engrossing, whirlwind metafictional tale effectively demonstrates the far-reaching effects of politics and culture on the smallest, most personal aspects of our lives.” Publisher’s Weekly

“An ambitious, witty and generous novel” Asian Review of Books

"Diminishing returners" - The Economist 1843 Magazine, Mar 2, 2017
More than half of young Hong Kongers say that they dream of emigrating. The life and works of Xu Xi, who was born in Hong Kong to Indonesian parents but is now an American citizen, embody their wanderlust. Her latest novel, "That Man in Our Lives", has transported readers from both her native city and the widening diaspora. The story crosses the Pacific as often as she does, but evokes a city that all readers can experience as locals.

“Beautifully refined in both intelligence and prose,” says Pulitzer Prize fiction winner Robert Olen Butler “this novel will not let a reader put it down.”

Novelist Vesna Goldsworthy describes it as “a mesmerizing, polyphonic plot . . . written by a truly transnational writer at the height of her powers,” adding that the novel “educates and delights the reader at the same time.”

American Book Award winning writer Alex Kuo calls it “a must read for anyone interested in understanding the merging and intractable financial and cultural intersections between China and the United States, and their everyday impact on their citizens.”

Fiction author Trinie Dalton says “this whole story exudes contemporary updates on The Great Gatsby’s decadence, yearning, and expat experimentation . . . is technically brilliant for its undulating points of view and diverse chronologies.”

Pulitzer fiction winner Adam Johnson says that “Xu Xi deepens her explorations of absence, alternate realities, and the elusiveness of identity in our increasingly fragmented world . . . with heart and wisdom, That Man in Our Lives is ultimately an intense examination of the very nature of storytelling.”

According to historian & author Nigel Collett, “Gordie is actually just life itself, the core we are all seeking but which evades us always, what we want but don't quite know why.”

Hyphen Magazine review by Jenn Lee Smith, Jan 15, 2017 

HAVEN BOOKS

Somewhere between Hong Kong and New York, life does an abrupt shift for Gail Szeto when her mother, her last family member, is killed in an accident. For Gail, a mixed-race, single mother who buried her young son only two years prior, all she has left is a hard-won career at a global investment bank. Life rapidly goes into free fall for this woman with a complicated past, who was once so sure of her direction in life, who can now see no clear future path. With an international cast in New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai, this novel dramatizes a Sino-American balance of power at a staggeringly intimate level.

The manuscript of this novel was a finalist in the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize.

“Smart, eloquent, cosmopolitan . . . a scintillating accomplishment.” Don Lee, author of Yellow, Wrack & Ruin.

“This accomplished, playful and graceful novel shows how swiftly life can change or seem to, depending on where you stand.” - Jill Dawson, bestselling author of The Great Lover

“A riveting character whose contradictions and longing to be her own woman make her fascinating to watch as she struggles for integrity . . . she’s recognizable, daunting and beautifully drawn.” - Rosellen Brown, bestselling author of Before & After

HONG KONG UNIVERSITY PRESS

An unusual book of quirky essays from her 'city-village' — of Hong Kong's vanishing culture and sensibility as it transforms into a space that is 21st Century China. Zooms in on her life: on family, friends, and a professional history as both business executive and author.

What some other writers say:
'Proves her mettle as a canny and au courant essayist and observer of THE postmodern city' Robin Hemley

'Her brilliant riff on the 'city-village' that is also her life moves through changing moods and times in a place of desire, dream and disappearance, sparkling, alert, searching - a real literary pleasure.' Nicholas Jose

'Cultural anthropologist and traffic cop standing at the diasporic intersection of the most exciting city in the world.' Shawn Wong

CHAMELEON PRESS
An insider's Hong Kong
The time is 1995. Life is surreal, swift, out of control as Hong Kong rushes towards that inevitable moment, the "handover" to China in 1997. Here are four lives in a changing world, in a city that is global, contemporary, and very much "home" to Chinese and Americans alike. The Unwalled City conjures an extraordinary feeling of place in a book that one reviewer says is filled with "believable characters that are fully human in their inner contradictions and complexity" and another calls "truly a novel of Hong Kong." Like the city itself, each of these native, and accidental, Hong Kong "yan" must leave behind the memory of what was in order to accept that which inevitably will be. (A China Institute of New York Book Club selection)

CHAMELEON PRESS
Love, and lust, unrequited and transformed in two of the world's great cities
October, 1987. Rose Kho, Hong Kong girl who left home, returned and has left it again for New York to escape her marriage, reflects on life, scotch in hand. The sun sets on the Statue of Liberty, while her employer’s premises are being searched by the Feds; they are under investigation for illegal arms running. The novel rewinds through a drama in Hong Kong of the seventies. Set against the Asian and international airline world, Hong Kong Rose was an instant bestseller upon publication in 1997 after which it was sadly allowed to lapse out of print. This new edition reinstates an important work that boldly tackles courage, cowardice and compromise in modern Asian society.