Keynote
A professor falls in love with a mechanical ballerina in a mordant and uncanny fable of contemporary Hong Kong
Book Title
Owlish
Subtitle
A Novel
Cover Image
- “Entrancing and otherworldly. . . . A protest fable that reveals many human truths, Tse's Owlish poses questions of desire and freedom under a punishing regime. The story lingers like a vivid dream bleeding into conscious life.”—Kathleen Rooney, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Body
With your face covered, sneaking into a city you thought you knew, are you still yourself? Or have you crossed to another world, where the streets are unpredictable and the people strangers, where you might at any moment run into some unknown dream version of yourself?
In a city called Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. He has a dull marriage and a lackluster career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition: a music box ballerina named Aliss who has tantalizingly sprung to life. Guided by his mysterious friend Owlish and inspired by an inexplicably familiar painting, Q embarks on an all-consuming love affair with Aliss, oblivious to the protests spreading across the university that have left his classrooms all but empty.
The mountainous city of Nevers is itself a mercurial character with concrete flesh, glimmering new construction, and “colonial flair.” Having fled there as a child refugee, Q thought he knew the faces of the city and its people, but Nevers is alive with secrets and shape-shifting geographies. The winner of a 2021 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, Owlish is a fantastically eerie debut novel that is also a bold exploration of life under oppressive regimes.
In a city called Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. He has a dull marriage and a lackluster career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition: a music box ballerina named Aliss who has tantalizingly sprung to life. Guided by his mysterious friend Owlish and inspired by an inexplicably familiar painting, Q embarks on an all-consuming love affair with Aliss, oblivious to the protests spreading across the university that have left his classrooms all but empty.
The mountainous city of Nevers is itself a mercurial character with concrete flesh, glimmering new construction, and “colonial flair.” Having fled there as a child refugee, Q thought he knew the faces of the city and its people, but Nevers is alive with secrets and shape-shifting geographies. The winner of a 2021 PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, Owlish is a fantastically eerie debut novel that is also a bold exploration of life under oppressive regimes.
List Price
$16.00
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About the Author
Upcoming Events
Dorothy Tse reading and in conversation on OWLISH with Natascha Bruce, presented by Green Apple Books and The Center for the Art of Translation
Date:
PT
Location:
Green Apple Books on the Park in San Francisco, CAview map
Check back here for more information.
Praise
“Late capitalist malaise and political turmoil populate Nevers, the glittering, neoliberal city at the heart of Dorothy Tse’s debut novel, Owlish. . . . Natascha Bruce was awarded a PEN/HEIM grant for her sparkling translation of this richly imagined, modern-day fairy tale.”—Center for the Art of Translation
- “A wonderfully imaginative fable that resonates with political critique and protest.”—Kirkus Reviews
- “A bold, brilliantly absorbing read. This clever, mercurial portrait of an alternate Hong Kong lingers long after the last page.”—Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch
- “Owlish is so delightfully creepy, wonderful and strange—I loved it.”—Camilla Grudova, author of Children of Paradise
