|
Lipstick and Other Stories has won an
American Book Award for 2002, the first book by a Hong Kong author and the
first book from a publisher outside the United States to be so honored. Alex Kuo bridges oceans, cultures and generations. From
grade-schoolers terrorizing Beijing’s Bank of China to seeing Elton John at
the Holiday Inn-Lido, from an imaginary interview with Chairman Mao’s
trusted confidant and advisor to encountering a Christian evangelist at the
Great Hall of the People; these stories play with and explode the intricate
and often murky relationships between ideology, dissidence and just plain
everyday survival.
Critics Comments
"Alex Kuo, like his
writing, is a creature that defies borders. Poised between countries,
between poetry and prose, his filtered fury and resistance to lazy
views of the world have just won him the American Book Award, a
literary feather for his cap, for Lipstick and Other Stories....For his Hong Kong publisher, independent Asia 2000, it is a triumph of
good writing against unfavorable odds, a first victory for a small fry
pitted against the big boys of the book business.
"Major trade houses in the U.S. have this
perception, Mr. Kuo says, that the American buying public is only
interested in a couple of forms of narrative. If you talk, say about
the Asian American experience, it has to be about immigration or an
ancient left-behind feudalism. He does not mince words. “It’s racist.
It’s cultural hegemony...My writing is very contemporary, I try to
explore...more questions are raised than answered.
"So the politically incorrect story Lipstick
was born, a jab at the media savvy planning of erstwhile Chinese
dissidents now scattered in relative luxury and safety across the
United States. Each story in the collection throws a gauntlet to the
reader, as though to say, “Swallow this, if you can. Define this, if
you dare."
"Mr. Kuo reached into
a Hong Kong boyhood for the delectably written story, "The Catholic
All-Star Chess Team." Its opening sentence is typical, anti-typical
bait: “My most immediate reason for recording this story is my
suspicion that the monogamous obsession of the Chinese for the game of
bridge will prompt them, when the island reverts to Chinese
sovereignty in 1997, to dismiss from history a most incredible chess
match that occurred in the middle of the century in the present
British crown colony of Hong Kong.
"In the breathless,
roller-coaster ride of Mr. Kuo's words, the weak-stomached must hang
on for dear life and the braver ones will grin in glee, then revel in
the sudden stillness of his poetic moments and read them greedily
again and again. It is this excitement that won Alex Kuo the
prestigious American Book Award."
Asian Wall Street Journal
"His stories burst with
hard-edged insights that take my breath away. I read them with
surprise and admiration."
Leung Ping-kwan
"The essence of what
short stories should be: simple and at the same time profound and
disturbing. It is his genius to bring to light how the basic horror of
repression, censorship and state terrorism is the same all over the
world, on any side."
Luisa
Valenzuela "A lushly written,
enigmatic collection of tales, most of which are set in that murky
borderland where dreams, memory, imagination and fact mingle and
merge, creating an alternate reality in which authenticity trumps mere
accuracy...Lipstick and Other Stories may present readers with more
questions than answers, but in the end it will leave them believing."
South
China Morning Post
"Collectively [these
stories] convey a strong sense of what a contemporary intellectual
artist in China is up against...Add to this a large dose of droll humor, and Kuo's art is complete."
Bloomsbury
Review
Readers Comments
Extract
Copyright © Alex Kuo
< >
|
