Xi Xu, Daughters of Hui

Amy Lai (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

Ed. by John Thieme, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.4.2: Hong Kong, Singaporean, Malaysian and Myanmar Writing and Culture.

Dates

First circulation or publication 1996

Places

Hong Kong (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novella

Resources

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Xu Xi’s second book is composed of four stories, which feature a variety of different women characters: traditional and liberal, conformists and rebels, and mixtures of the two. As Naomi Price remarks, in the “common battle for sexual self-determination” which accompanies their struggle with their origins, these woman characters not only share the same surname, “Hui”, but also are “sisters under the skin”.

These “sisters” include Rosemary Hui in “Danny’s Snake”, a Chinese woman working as a professor in the States, who suppresses her sexual desire for her American student, her husband having has returned to Hong Kong to visit his sick father. In “Loving Graham”, the “amoral” and “promiscuous” narrator is a highly educated woman who divorces her first

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2367 words

Citation: Lai, Amy. "Daughters of Hui". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12473, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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