Bestiary
The blazing debut novel about queer desire and buried secrets
Published on 3. February 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-5291-1196-5 (ISBN)
Description
Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this blazing debut of one family's queer desires, violent impulses and buried secrets.
One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman's body. Her name was Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her estranged grandmother; a visiting aunt leaves red on everything she touches; a ghost bird shimmers in an ancient birdcage.
All the while, Daughter is falling for a neighbourhood girl named Ben with mysterious stories of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother's letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies an old Taiwanese myth, and fears the power of the tiger spirit bristling within her to cause pain. She will have to bring her family's secrets to light in order to derail their destiny.
'What gives me fuel are other books - anything stylish and/or dirty. This year I loved reading K-Ming Chang's Bestiary' Raven Leilani, author of Luster
One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman's body. Her name was Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her estranged grandmother; a visiting aunt leaves red on everything she touches; a ghost bird shimmers in an ancient birdcage.
All the while, Daughter is falling for a neighbourhood girl named Ben with mysterious stories of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother's letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies an old Taiwanese myth, and fears the power of the tiger spirit bristling within her to cause pain. She will have to bring her family's secrets to light in order to derail their destiny.
'What gives me fuel are other books - anything stylish and/or dirty. This year I loved reading K-Ming Chang's Bestiary' Raven Leilani, author of Luster
Reviews / Votes
A powerful novel that will sit inside you for days after reading -- Lucy Knight * Sunday Times * A visceral, magical tale - every sentence is worth savouring. -- Kirsty Logan, author of Things We Say in the Dark Full of magic realism that reaches down your throat, grabs hold of your guts and forces a slow reckoning with what it means to be a foreigner, a native, a mother, a daughter * New York Times * Chang makes a spell rise from every wound, and I'm caught all the way up in this magic... one of the best emerging writers out there. -- Danez Smith K-Ming Chang's prose ravishes, ravages, rampages. This is an absolute lightning strike of a debut. The world grew brighter as I read it. -- Kelly Link, author of GET IN TROUBLE Gorgeous and gorgeously grotesque . . . Every line of this sensuous, magical-realist marvel-about multiple generations of Taiwanese-American women in Arkansas whose lives are imbued with cultural and familial myth-is utterly alive. * O: The Oprah Magazine * The poet K-Ming Chang's debut novel, Bestiary, offers up a different kind of narrative, full of magic realism that reaches down your throat, grabs hold of your guts and forces a slow reckoning with what it means to be a foreigner, a native, a mother, a daughter - and all the things in between. * New York Times * What gives me fuel are other books - anything stylish and/or dirty. This year I loved reading K-Ming Chang's Bestiary. -- Raven Leilani, author of Luster To read K-Ming Chang is to see the world in fresh, surreal technicolor. Hers is a dizzyingly imaginative, sharp-witted voice queering migration, adolescence, and questions of family and belonging in totally new and unexpected ways. Both wild and lyrical, visionary and touching. Read her! -- Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti Epic and intimate at once, Bestiary brings myth to visceral life, showing what becomes of women and girls who carry tigers, birds, and fish within. K-Ming Chang's talent exposes what is hidden inside us. She makes magic on the page. -- Julia Philips, author of the National Book Award finalist Disappearing EarthMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
220 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5291-1196-5 (9781529111965)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and an O. Henry Prize winner. She is the author of the novel Bestiary, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and Gods of Want, which won the Lambda Literary Award.