In the mountainous city of Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. He has a dull marriage and a lacklustre career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition: a music box ballerina named Aliss who tantalizingly springs to life. Guided by his mysterious friend Owlish and inspired by an inexplicably familiar painting, Q embarks on an all-consuming love affair with Aliss, oblivious to the sinister forces encroaching on his city and the protests spreading across the university that have left his classrooms all but empty. Thrumming with secrets and shape-shifting geographies, Dorothy Tse’s extraordinary debut novel is a boldly inventive exploration of life under repressive conditions.
Dorothy Tse is a fiction writer who has received multiple literary awards in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Her collection Snow and Shadow (translated by Nicky Harman) was longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award. A co-founder of Hong Kong’s leading literary magazine, Fleurs des Lettres, she teaches at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Natascha Bruce translates fiction from Chinese. He...