These stories are told with a lucid economy of style and a singular depth of understanding. They bear witness in the way that good writing can to the suffering caused by political violence and the arrogance of imperialism. They also show how people from different cultures meet, fall in love and misunderstand one another. The range of experience David Wong explores is wide and various. His stories are informed by momentous historical events whose relevance to the times we live in will be felt by any reader who takes up this book. Reading them is a continuous process of discovery about things that matter.
—Jon Cook, Professor of Literature and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities
University of East Anglia, UK
These stories are beautiful. David T. K. Wong creates characters whose experience of the denial of fairness and justice permeates their lives and ambitions. They know that their lives have greater promise and struggle with their powerlessness. Wong shows us what we must cherish and be vigilant to safeguard in these lyrical stories.
—Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International, UK
David T. K. Wong was born in Hong Kong and received his early education in China, Singapore and Australia. He has degrees in political science and journalism from Stanford University in America and a post-graduate diploma in public administration from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague. Later, he also became a Fellow in Economics at Queen Elizabeth House at Oxford.
He is the founder of the annual David T. K. Wong Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in the UK. The Fellowship awards £26,000 to a successful candidate to write a serious work of fiction set in the Far East.
He worked as a journalist in Hong Kong, London and Singapore for a number of years before joining the Administrative Service of the Hong Kong Government. After retirement from public service, he became the Managing Director of an international trading firm for eight years before emigrating to London to embark upon a writing career.
He has published four collections of short stories and two novels. His short stories, some of which have earned him a number of awards, have appeared in various magazines in the United States, Great Britain, Hong Kong and other Asian countries.
Many of his stories have been broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in Britain, RTHK in Hong Kong and other stations in Ireland, Holland, Belgium and elsewhere. A number of his short stories have appeared in anthologies.
He is now resident in Malaysia where he is currently working on a multi-volume family memoir, of which this is the second volume.
