The Age of Goodbyes

Zi Shu Li, YZ Chin

Description

By one of Southeast Asia’s most exciting writers, The Age of Goodbyes is a wildly inventive account of family history, political turmoil, and the redemptive grace of storytelling.

In 1969, in the wake of Malaysia's deadliest race riots, a woman named Du Li An secures her place in society by marrying a gangster. In a parallel narrative, a critic known only as The Fourth Person explores the work of a writer also named Du Li An. And a third storyline is in the second person; “you” are reading a novel titled The Age of Goodbyes. Floundering in the wake of “your” mother’s death, “you” are trying to unpack the secrets surrounding “your” lineage.

The Age of Goodbyes—which begins on page 513, a reference to the riots of May 13, 1969—is the acclaimed debut by Li Zi Shu. The winner of multiple awards and a Taiwanese bestseller, this dazzling novel is a profound exploration of what happens to personal memory when official accounts of history distort and render it taboo.

Sujets

• 20th Century
• World Literature
• Literary
• Women
• Malasia
• Asian American literature
• Literature
• Min Jin Lee
• AAPI
• Malaysia
• Asian American studies
• Taiwanese
• Maxine Hong Kingston
• Woman
• Southeast Asia
• Malaisie
• The Women
• Amy Tan
• China
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Feminist Press at CUNY
• Date de parution: 08 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781952177712
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Praise for The Age of Goodbyes
“ The Age of Goodbyes is a sprawling Southeast Asian epic featuring kopitiams, mosquito coils, and serialized television dramas; a sequence of not-quite-love stories that ache with longing; and an utterly self-conscious commentary on the limits of narratives. Centering the lives of women often relegated to the margins of history, Li Zi Shu has written a trancelike, poetic meditation on intergenerational trauma, rooted in the literary tradition of Chinese-language novels but infused with a García Márquez–like magical realism. It takes a master to pull off a work this ambitious, and Li does so without any of the seams showing. I love this book both as a reader and writer.”
— KAREN CHEUNG, author of The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir
“Weaving together magical realism, surrealism, and political realism, The Age of Goodbyes narrates a history with no name, silenced memories of racial violence, social injustice, and civil rights repressions. Li Zi Shu—brilliantly translated by YZ Chin—shines the light of justice for minority communities pressed into erasure with her fabulist, agonistic, and ever-playful vision.”
— SHIRLEY GEOK-LIN LIM, author of Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands
“A multidimensional hall of mirrors that demands to be explored more than once, The Age of Goodbyes packs an emotional punch that you won’t see coming. YZ Chin’s vivacious translation perfectly complements Li Zi Shu’s heightened sensibility.”
— JEREMY TIANG, author of State of Emergency
“ The Age of Goodbyes is a colossal feat of storytelling. Like stones thrown into a pond, its many narratives unsettle the surface. The pleasure in reading the novel is in waiting for them to touch bottom and stir up all that’s resting there.”
— JEANNIE VANASCO, author of Things We Didn’t Talk about When I Was a Girl: A Memoir

Published in 2022 by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York The Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406 New York, NY 10016
feministpress .org
First Feminist Press edition 2022
告別的年代 copyright © 2010 by Li Zi Shu English translation copyright © 2022 by YZ Chin
Originally published in Taiwan in 2010 by Linking Publishing Co.
All rights reserved.
This book was made possible thanks to a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
This book is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First printing November 2022
Cover design by Dana Li Text design by Frances Ross
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Li, Zishu, 1971- author. | Chin, YZ, translator.
Title: The age of goodbyes / Li Zi Shu ; translated by YZ Chin.
Other titles: Gao bie de nian dai. English
Description: First Feminist Press edition. | New York, NY : Feminist Press, 2022.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022026329 (print) | LCCN 2022026330 (ebook) | ISBN 9781952177699 (paperback) | ISBN 9781952177712 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.
Classification: LCC PL2946.Z47 G3613 2022 (print) | LCC PL2946.Z47 (ebook) | DDC 895.13/52--dc23/eng/20220603
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026329
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026330
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS Cover Praise for The Age of Goodbyes Title page Copyright Contents Preface Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve About the Author and Translator Also Available from the Feminist Press About the Feminist Press
You’re reading this book, which is a novel. The author brings up “writing such a magnum opus” in the afterword. “Magnum opus” is a word choice worth scrutinizing, since you’ve rarely seen any novelist describe their own work with such a term. The term rightfully belongs to the domain of literary critics, and is more suited for a foreword or introduction. Coming from the author, it produces an impression of arrogance bordering on a faux pas.
If you had to guess, you’d say the writer of this book is either a small-time hack with delusions of grandeur or else a bookish academic with not insignificant accomplishments under their belt. Both types would tend toward self-aggrandizement and be a little in thrall to themselves. At the very least they would cling closely to their own opinions.
But you have no idea how to verify your hypothesis, because this is an incomplete book. Maybe it’s also an incomplete novel. It was already in this partial state when you stumbled upon it—hardcover, with nothing amiss at first glance, its rust-green cover bearing only the characters “The Age of Goodbyes” stamped in gold. Though the book looks ancient, its pages damp and yellowed, there is almost no sign it has ever been flipped through. Furthermore, the book releases a pungent inky smell when opened, as if it had been placed there hot off the press, causing it to retain that fresh scent unique to new books.
This book has no title page. You are a little skeptical of your own eyes, and so you turn the pages back and forth in search of it. But there really isn’t a title page, and what’s more, there is no copyright page, and no publisher is indicated. Not even the author’s name can be found. Most curiously, its page numbers start at 513, as if this book’s first page is actually the novel’s five hundred and thirteenth page …
This is so odd that it attracts your attention. A book that starts from page 513. You can’t help but squat down and start reading:
In 1969, Chan Kam Hoi suffered a sudden heart attack while viewing the film Floozy’s Allures . Although at the time Old Majestic Cinema was packed to the rafters, the audience was captivated by the film, and as a result no one was aware of Mister Chan’s condition. Due to lack of timely medical attention, Mister Chan ultimately perished on the scene. This development became well known around town and caused rather a sensation.
These are the first sentences in The Age of Goodbyes . The description is exceedingly bland. You think it fits the bill of an opening paragraph, yet it could also very well be a random passage lifted from something much longer.
At that time, you hadn’t yet realized that this is a novel. Those damn bland words, they read almost like a snippet from some obscure column in the discontinued Southern Screen magazine. You recognize this particular writing style and effect. The language has a rotten tinge of days gone by, being thoroughly saturated with the tropical flavors of Nanyang as well as the salacious scandals of its migrants. This style of writing still appears occasionally in some weekly or other, since it’s especially well equipped to relay the old tales of a mining town and reminisce about long-dead public figures. It is also used to relate sensational tales of yore, or subtly implicate town residents for old entanglements and love affairs.
You’d always assumed this was a disappearing language, one suited to the biographies of those from your grandfather’s generation. Therefore when you first read this ambiguous “introduction,” you very naturally chalk this book up as one of those annals self-published many years ago by some clan association (it could be the Chen Clan Association, or the Hakka Guild). Very possibly it was done to commemorate one of its leaders’ prominent family, penned by an association member who wore black-framed glasses and had a way with words (and who happened to be a veteran newspaper reporter). They spun a grandiose yarn, starting with “Chan Kam Hoi, of Dabu county in Canton province, born 1930, died 1969 …”
If it were really that kind of commemorative journal, then the identity of the author has no investigative value. You can just imagine this man, now well in his twilight years. If he didn’t have Alzheimer’s, then he’d very likely still be a correspondent at some tabloid, or maybe he’d have his own column, tasked with writing risqué gossip surrounding former government officials or with capturing plain old nostalgia.
That said, a book that starts on page 513 still seems bizarre. Could it be a technical printing error? You can’t help but flip to the book’s very last page.
… After overcoming diverse obstacles, Du Li An finally found success in securing an eatery. The remodeled restaurant was launched after the Mid-Autumn Festival. The next year Du Li An’s sister-in-law was blessed with her eldest daughter, Emily, whose one-month birthday was celebrated with a reception at the aforementioned restaurant. Eighty-eight tables were set out for the dinner reception, which was attended by numerous exalted guests and celebrity figures.
What a baffling way to end a book. The narrative, still bland, could pass as an ending, but also leaves room for more. The phrase “eldest daughter, Emily” has the effect of “to be continued.” You feel as if the author suddenly became bored and fed up with the never-ending narrative, abruptly tossed their pen aside, and allowed their generation-spanning family story to screech to a halt. Although they also hint at the ongoing personal relationships and plot development still to come through the phrase “eldest daughter, Emily.”
This is a book you found in the library. It sat heavy like a brick, left on a bookshelf in some corner of the building. That shelf, labeled “Other,” is wedged next to one dedicated to “History/Biography.”
The categorization of books in the library is very precise. This, in combination with the librarians’ attention to deta