Ghost Forest

by Fung, Pik-Shuen
4.9 out of 5 Customer Rating
ISBN: 9780593230961
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$12.99

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Overview

An unforgettable debut that explores love, grief, and forgiveness through the story of a daughter separated from her father by the handover of Hong Kong.

In the years leading up to the 1997 handover from the British to the Chinese, one sixth of the population of Hong Kong emigrated. As a result, the phenomena of "astronaut families" was born. In contrast to the "nuclear family," an "astronaut family" is one in which members reside in different countries across the world. With globalization on the rise, this was a new economic force for households: Fathers remained in Hong Kong to work, while mothers and children emigrated to the United States, Canada, and Australia for the education systems and a refuge outside authoritarian China.

In Ghost Forest, the unnamed narrator is the eldest of two daughters who grew up in Vancouver with her mother, away from her father in China, who's now sick. She's twenty-four and realizing she has never told her father that she loves him. The stories and experiences that unfold through his subsequent death and memorialization are lessons and curiosities of intimacy and affection. They are real, raw, and poignant meditations on how life and love can sometimes best be discovered in dying.

This is a story of an underrepresented Chinese identity, a transnational identity, one that is neither rootless nor completely uprooted. Told in space and monologue, traveling through present and past, Ghost Forest recounts memories and performs traditions with a weight and tenderness that only family can inspire.

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Author: Fung, Pik-Shuen
  • ISBN: 9780593230961
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 7.60 x 1.00
  • Number Of Pages: 272
  • Publication Year: 2021

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