AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Contemporary Singapore: Actress Chiang Ching performs Madame Mao Tse-Tung on stage while her husband, Tang, is arrested and detained without trial. Struggling to understand her own role and her country's cultural and political history Chiang Ching, like her alter-ego, becomes increasingly delusional, and the lines of her world - the real, mythical and imagined - become blurred. Lau Siew Mel creates a challenging and potent weave of Chinese diaspora, political intrigue and personal journeys in a battle for meaning.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
-
Dedication: For Esmi and Matthew with my love.
-
Epigraph: I realized how in her own mind truth and fiction, history and literature, past and present had blurred. Such synthesis was at the heart of propaganda by which she lived. American journalist Roxane Witke on Madam Mao Tse-tung.
-
Epigraph: There is no construction without destruction, no flowing without damming and no motion without rest; the two are locked in a life-and-death struggle. Chairman Mao.
-
Epigraph: Comrades, you should always bear your own responsibilities. If you've got to shit, shit! If you've got to fart, fart! Don't hold things down in your bowels, and you'll feel easier. Chairman Mao.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
y
Representations of Memory and Identity in Chinese Australian English Novels Supervisor
Canberra
:
2015
18594841
2015
single work
thesis
'This thesis argues that one of the main characteristics of contemporary Chinese Australian literature in English language is its heavy focus on memory and identity. In order to prove this claim, the thesis analyses five English-language novels written by Chinese Australian writers from the period 1990-2010.'
Source: Thesis abstract.
-
Southeast Asian Australian Women’s Fiction and the Globalization of “Magic”
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Postcolonial Writing , vol. 50 no. 6 2014; (p. 675-687) 'This article discusses the evolution of magical realism in relation to the postcolonial by looking at three contemporary Australian women authors originating from Southeast Asia. Besides extending magical realism to the Australian and Southeast Asian regions, these authors show the contours of the literary mode to be flexible, as magical realism has moved from being a localized Latin American trend to assuming a significant status on the international market. Concomitantly, their fiction develops various forms of a postcolonial aesthetics of “home” – forms that are neither pure nor authentic, but always-already partial and complicit with orientalist practices, in particular in light of new fault lines opened up in the wake of decolonization. This is one reason why their fiction embraces magical realist modes of representation: as an ambivalent literary mode, straddling the “actual” and the “imaginary”, and situated in-between resistance to, and collaboration with, Eurocentric modes of representation, magical realism retains a strong political relevance in a globalized, postcolonial era.' (Publication abstract) -
Writing Chinese Diaspora : After the 'White Australia Policy'
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Down Under : Australian Literary Studies Reader 2009; (p. 263-270) Australian Made : A Multicultural Reader 2010; (p. 158-172) An overview of Chinese-Australian writing. -
Seeing Double : The Quest for Chineseness in Australia
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies and Literary Theory , no. 16 2008; (p. 90-109) 'Chinese and other Asians, this essay argues, performed a structural function in the developing national consciousness of Australia as the racial/cultural Other against which the national self was defined and towards which its fears and desires could be projected. Today, Chinese Australian writers use the image of the double to explore their own position in the national psyche. To what extent, they ask, is it possible to imagine a merging of Asian and Australian, observer and observed, representation and self-construction? Is the Chinese-antipodean identity always a site of conflict and contradiction or can it be lived as a happier kind of hybridity?' -- Author's abstract -
Tales of Two Cities: Fictions by Lau Siew Mei and Susan Johnson
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 18 no. 2 2004; (p. 113-118)
-
The Vital Shore
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 22 August vol. 118 no. 6238 2000; (p. 94-95)
— Review of Vixen 2000 single work novel ; The Arch-Traitor's Lament 2000 single work novel ; The Storyteller 2000 single work novel ; The Australian Fiance 2000 single work novel ; Family Album : A Novel of Secrets and Memories 2000 single work novel ; Playing Madame Mao 2000 single work novel ; Conditions of Faith 2000 single work novel ; The Company : The Story of a Murderer 2000 single work novel -
Eastern and Western Mythologies
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 221 2000; (p. 41)
— Review of Playing Madame Mao 2000 single work novel -
From Pedestrian to Magic Realism and Escapism
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 2 July 2000; (p. 11)
— Review of Playing Madame Mao 2000 single work novel -
Untitled
2000
single work
review
— Appears in: Imago : New Writing , vol. 12 no. 3 2000; (p. 139-140)
— Review of Playing Madame Mao 2000 single work novel -
A Butterfly Nailed to the Page
2001
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Winter no. 163 2001; (p. 111-113)
— Review of The Office as a Boat : A Chronicle 2000 single work novel ; Shore and Shelter 2000 single work novel ; Things You Get for Free 2000 single work autobiography ; Playing Madame Mao 2000 single work novel -
Tales of Two Cities: Fictions by Lau Siew Mei and Susan Johnson
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 18 no. 2 2004; (p. 113-118) -
Writing Chinese Diaspora : After the 'White Australia Policy'
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Down Under : Australian Literary Studies Reader 2009; (p. 263-270) Australian Made : A Multicultural Reader 2010; (p. 158-172) An overview of Chinese-Australian writing. -
Seeing Double : The Quest for Chineseness in Australia
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies and Literary Theory , no. 16 2008; (p. 90-109) 'Chinese and other Asians, this essay argues, performed a structural function in the developing national consciousness of Australia as the racial/cultural Other against which the national self was defined and towards which its fears and desires could be projected. Today, Chinese Australian writers use the image of the double to explore their own position in the national psyche. To what extent, they ask, is it possible to imagine a merging of Asian and Australian, observer and observed, representation and self-construction? Is the Chinese-antipodean identity always a site of conflict and contradiction or can it be lived as a happier kind of hybridity?' -- Author's abstract -
Quiet Achiever
2000
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 17 June 2000; (p. 9) -
Southeast Asian Australian Women’s Fiction and the Globalization of “Magic”
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Postcolonial Writing , vol. 50 no. 6 2014; (p. 675-687) 'This article discusses the evolution of magical realism in relation to the postcolonial by looking at three contemporary Australian women authors originating from Southeast Asia. Besides extending magical realism to the Australian and Southeast Asian regions, these authors show the contours of the literary mode to be flexible, as magical realism has moved from being a localized Latin American trend to assuming a significant status on the international market. Concomitantly, their fiction develops various forms of a postcolonial aesthetics of “home” – forms that are neither pure nor authentic, but always-already partial and complicit with orientalist practices, in particular in light of new fault lines opened up in the wake of decolonization. This is one reason why their fiction embraces magical realist modes of representation: as an ambivalent literary mode, straddling the “actual” and the “imaginary”, and situated in-between resistance to, and collaboration with, Eurocentric modes of representation, magical realism retains a strong political relevance in a globalized, postcolonial era.' (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2001 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards
- 1999 shortlisted Queensland Premier's Literary Awards
-
cSingapore,cSoutheast Asia, South and East Asia, Asia,