Tongueless

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

Wai and Ling are secondary school Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong, both crumbling under the pressure of a forced transition from using Cantonese to Mandarin as a medium of Chinese-language instruction. Apolitical and focused only on surviving their professional environment, Wai and Ling approach the challenge differently: Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning, only to fail the qualification exam, lose her job, become mentally ill, and kill herself by inserting a drill into her head.

Ling is polished and cunning, she knows how to please her superiors and believes she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge through her social savviness. Ling sees herself haunted and mirrored by Wai's tragedy: things around her slowly spiral out of control and her colleagues begin to shun her too. What will she do to survive in a ruthless environment where the rules of survival are constantly being re-written

Tongueless is a taut, compelling novel of betrayal, power imbalance and rapid social change.

Reviews

'Insightful and investigative, Lau Yee-Wa explores the searing politics of a threatened tongue in Hong Kong with tact, terror and empathy. She evokes a dangerously competitive world fuelled by success, shopping, inflation of house prices, educational hierarchy and social status. It's a timely portrayal of a city that has experienced a seismic shock and is grappling with the consequences of irreversible change.' - Kit Fan, author of Diamond Hill

Author Bio

Lau Yee-Wa is one of Hong Kong's most exciting emerging authors. She studied Chinese Language and Literature and then Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, graduating with a Masters degree before going on to earn her Postgraduate Diploma in Secondary Education. Yee-Wa worked as an editor in a publishing house for five years before her short story 'The Shark' won the prestigious Hong Kong Champion Award for Creative Writing in Chinese in 2016.