Biographical note: Wena Poon was born and raised in Singapore and at seventeen, moved to the United States where she has lived in New York, San Francisco and Austin. In 2008, Lions In Winter ranked in the Top 10 Bestseller List for Fiction in the Singapore newspaper, The Straits Times, and was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize. Her short fiction and poetry have been widely published across the world and, as a freelance journalist, she has written for publications such as Film Quarterly, Marie Claire and The Straits Times. She graduated in English Literature from Harvard University and holds a degree from Harvard Law School. She is a practising member of the New York and California State Bars.
BIC Basic
EAN13: 9781844715763 ISBN: 9781844715763 Author: Wena Poon Title: Lions in Winter Series: Salt Modern Fiction Product class: BC Language: eng Audience: General/trade BIC subject category: FNB Publisher: Salt Publishing Pub date: 15-Sep-09 Extent: 160pp Height: 216 mm Width: 140 mm Thickness: 12 mm Weight: 240 gms Supplier:Gardners Books Supplier:Ingram Book Group Supplier:Inbooks (James Bennett) Availability: IP Price: GBP 8.99 Price: USD 14.95 Rights: World
Short
description/annotation: Five million English-speaking Chinese, Indians and Malays live in Singapore today – an artificial port city created entirely by British traders in the 19th century. In her vivid stories, the Singapore-born American writer Wena Poon captures the true urban sophistication of New Asia and the journey of an eclectic people coming to terms with their cultural legacy.
Main description: Five million English-speaking Chinese, Indians and Malays live in Singapore today – an artificial port city created entirely by British traders in the 19th century. The Singapore-born, multi-lingual American writer Wena Poon describes herself and her fiction as an “accident of history.” She charts the 21st century journey of Singaporeans as they settle in the cities of New York, Los Angeles, London, Perth and Toronto. In her vivid stories, Poon captures the true urban sophistication of New Asia and the journey of an eclectic people coming to terms with their cultural legacy.
Table of contents: Preface Addiction Dog Hot Pot The Man Who Was Afraid of ATMs Lions In Winter The Hair Washing Girl The Toys The Move Mrs Chan's Wedding Day Kenny's Big Break Those Who Serve; Those Who Do Not The Shooting Ranch Acknowledgements
“Why do they like to put stuffed toys in the back of their cars?”
The medication created a thick fog in my head most days. Today was no exception. Mrs Riley was peering through the window blinds she had just snapped open. Piercing light flooded the room. I blinked.
“Huh?” I said.
“These Asians. Immigrants. You drive behind them, and sometimes you see they have dozens of tiny little animals – stuffed toys – lined up against the back. Looking out at you with their beady eyes. Like a toy display in a shop. You know what I’m talking about?” She stabbed her finger against the window out into the street. “It’s very curious that they do that. That woman next door’s Asian. You can see her car from here. Right next to your driveway. She has them, too. All them toys, right up the back window. Bears, cats, ponies. Strange if you ask me. Strange people. Strange practices.”
I reached weakly for the bottle of mineral water by my table and she bustled about and poured it into a glass for me. Mrs Riley had been in Massachusetts for since she was fourteen, but her Irish accent was as strong as the day she arrived. She liked to say “stra-aaange” in that accent and anything she said in that accent was doubly strange. You couldn’t help but agree with her.
“What’s so strange about that?” I said, coughing. “People love stuffed toys. They make people happy. ”
“Not adults.”
“Maybe she’s lonely.” My eyes watered and I wiped them with the corner of the pillow case. “Maybe she’s lonely during her commute and she talks to them in the car.”
“You don’t say!” Mrs Riley lowered her voice, although there was no chance of anyone else overhearing. “She works at the university, you know.”
“Professor?”
She shrugged doubtfully. “I don’t think so, she doesn’t speak English very well.”
“How do you know? Ever talked to her?”
“Never. Heard it from the postman when she first moved in.” Mrs Riley was an immigrant herself, but loved gossiping about “the immigrants”. The new ones, of course. The Chinese, the Indians, the Vietnamese who now populate the small towns of Massachusetts like this one. Opening laundromats, running little restaurants. Filling the public pools on Sundays with their kids. Taking over our university campuses.
Mrs Riley started folding the clothes from the dryer and putting them away in the cedar-lined drawers. The sharp smell of cedar filled the cold winter morning. I loved that smell. I had never noticed that the chest of drawers that my Irish grandmother left us was cedar-lined. When you were sick you really did stop and smell the roses.
“Everywhere you go now, you see the little Asian children and their strange haircuts,” said Mrs Riley. I thought she was complaining, but her face softened. “Very smart, they say. I’m fond of clever children, you know. Never had any smart children myself. Why do you think they’re so smart? Must be something they eat?”
“What do they eat?” I burst out laughing weakly, as she lined up my daily pills – two pink, two orange, two blue. “Rice?”
“Well the Indian ones, they eat lots of curry. My husband liked curry himself, you know. Before he passed. Never made him smarter.”
Unpublished endorsement: Asia desperately needs more narratives like hers to cancel out all the foolish, precious exoticism, pagodas and bound feet and concubines everywhere.
Preeta Samarasan
Unpublished endorsement: Refreshingly unpretentious and heartfelt.
Tan Twan Eng
Previous review quote: The exile returns to illuminate an intimate part of Singapore, and does so quite beautifully.
Neel Chowdhury Time Magazine
Previous review quote: Determined to talk about the here and now, and to give voice to millions of Asians who are woefully underrepresented in English language fiction.
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