The Kite Family

“The Kite Family showcases the work of Hon Lai-chu, a wildly creative Hong Kong writer. The stories, elegantly translated by Andrea Lingenfelter, range from the torn-from-the-headlines dystopian anxieties of ‘Notes on an Epidemic’ to the more surrealistic ‘Forrest Woods, Chair,’ which takes themes from Kafka’s Metamorphosis in an engagingly novel direction. The book benefits greatly from an introduction by Lingenfelter, which both explains her approach to rendering Hon’s prose into English and shows how the author’s stories fit into Hong Kong’s fascinating and globally too-little-known literary landscape.” —Jeffrey Wasserstrom, author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know

“Evocatively written and expertly translated, these Hong Kong stories will draw you into Hon Lai-chu’s surreal and yet recognizable world.” —Howard Goldblatt, translator of Nobel laureate Mo Yan