Overleaf Hong Kong by Xu Xi ISBN 9789889706067 | Trade Paper | Chameleon Press | May 2004 | HK$95.00 Buy this book from Paddyfield.com

"In Overleaf Hong Kong, a collection of short stories and essays, Xu Xi explores what it means to be an overseas Chinese, a fascinating state rife with ambiguities. "With a style at once coolly ironic and droll, with a subtlety that resists belaboring the obvious, she plumbs those ambiguities eloquently. Whether it is an imagined Indonesian Chinese schoolgirl dealing with a menacing Japanese officer in wartime Singapore; a fairly affluent, late middle-aged couple vacationing in New Zealand; the author describing a talk to the Chinese Mutual Aid Society in Chicago; or meditating on the idiosyncrasies of life at Jack Kerouac's former home turned artist's colony, she alerts us to the nuances of a seemingly contradictory condition—at home everywhere and nowhere. "Xu offers us these works with a sensibility that is keenly observant, generous and compassionate. In a world increasingly fragmented, even as it gets smaller, we would do well to pay attention." -- Luis H Francia, critic/poet, author of 'The Eye of the Fish',and 'Memories of Overdevelopment' "Xu Xi proves that literature is not so much about a particular region or people, but rather a part of the global community. Her unparalleled literary reach touches several continents with a new and innovative diasporic global language." -- novelist Shawn Wong, author of 'American Knees', 'Homebase' "A multiplicity of viewpoints inform this thoughtful and smart book. Xu Xi writes with clarity, dexterity, and the kind of ‘omniscience’ that comes from her vantage point of living between worlds: between Hong Kong and America, between the dual heritages of China and Indonesia, between the worlds of tradition and modernity in all its confusing forms. Here is a writer of prose at the height of her abilities as an alchemist of observation." -- Robin Hemley, author/editor of 'Invented Eden: The Elusive, Disputed History of the Tasaday'; 'Nola: A Memoir of Faith, Art, and Madness'; 'Turning Life into Fiction'

Review: The Asian Review of Books