3 expat women lost and desperate in Hong Kong: Janice Lee on her second novel
Writer whose debut novel The Piano Teacher, also set in Hong Kong, won international acclaim talks about her own experience as an expat growing up in Hong Kong, her favourite books about the city and how she came up with the characters for her latest book
It is not hyperbole to say that Janice Y.K. Lee is quite likely the finest non-Chinese novelist to emerge from Hong Kong in the past few decades. Her 2009 first novel, The Piano Teacher, set in Hong Kong during the second world war and the 1950s, tells the haunting story of a British man and his two very different love affairs a decade apart against the backdrop of the city. The book earned international literary praise and climbed The New York Times’ bestsellers list. With her second novel, The Expatriates, Lee proves her debut promise was no beginner’s luck. In this nuanced and cinematic narrative, Lee tells the story of three foreign women, each of whom feels lost and desperate in Hong Kong. Lee, who was born in Hong Kong, attended HKIS, left for America at age 15, attended university at Harvard and returned as an adult with four children, aged eight to 13, in tow, captures a 21st century Asian city that is rife with tradition and hierarchy, and is constantly in flux. The author, who now lives in Manhattan, talks to Alison Singh Gee about expats, writing books and choosing Hong Kong as her literary landscape.
You’ve now written two novels set in Hong Kong. What is it about the city that intrigues you in a literary way?
I think you write what you know. And I know my Hong Kong. It’s not everyone’s Hong Kong, but it is mine. And I’m adjacent to a lot of different communities in Hong Kong. I wrote both books while living there. I’m not sure my next book (if it ever gets written) will be set in Hong Kong. I think I should probably venture further afield.
What is your favourite book set in Hong Kong and why?
I read a lot of books while researching The Piano Teacher and I find it hard to pick just one. I think Love is A Many Splendoured Thing is very atmospheric. I enjoyed Gweilo a lot. And China To Me, a memoir by Emily Hahn, which is sadly out of print, is one of the best books I have read. The tone of it is still so fresh. She was a real character, an American writer for the New Yorker who lived in Hong Kong during the war. She really brought wartime Hong Kong alive for me.
