The Heartsick Diaspora

Acutely observed, wry and playful, her debut collection celebrates people who are torn between cultures and juggling a fragmented sense of self. Five writers form a writing support group but the dynamics shift when a young, handsome Asian writer joins them; three Singaporean daughters welcome their mother on her first visit to London and quarrel over steamboat; a Chinese woman raps about being a Tiger Mother; an elderly Chinese woman recognises that it isn’t the race that estranges, but the inability to tell the truth; an ethnic writer takes on Eastern mythology in a metaphoric quest to understand the anxiety of Western literary influence. Filled with humourous and heartening short stories, this anthology is a time capsule of how identities evolve and change with the times and places.