The Age of Goodbyes
The Age of Goodbyes
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.
'Loaded with vibrant cultural details, wry anecdotes, and literary conundrums, it's a challenging and often downright mystifying tale, but never less than absorbing.'-Foreword Reviews,starred review
'A beguiling metafictional English-language debut with a kaleidoscope of stories about and perspectives on Malaysian life over the past 50 years.' - Publishers Weekly
'A lesson on the haunting nature of history, both personal and political.' - Booklist
'Blending metafictional elements with lush, cinematic accounts of marginalized histories, Li illuminates the ordinary lives of Chinese families in Kuala Lumpur... Singularly imagined and formally experimental.' - Los Angeles Review of Books
'Inventive and experimental.' - Ploughshares
'[The Age of Goodbyes is] a high-wire act of metafiction, and it works.' - Los Angeles Times
'Li reanimates with a Proustian fondness the yearnings and struggles of Chinese-Malaysian women over the years, and presents a vivid sense of place with references to local food, cinema and song.' - Litro Magazine
'Following three storylines of trauma, upheaval and history, this Southeast Asian epic is rife with detail, tradition, and heart.'- Ms. Magazine
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