Category: Hong Kong Fiction in Translation
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Chris Song’s Note: Liu Yichang’s 劉以鬯 (1918–2018) short story “Riot” 動亂, set against the backdrop of the 1967 Hong Kong Riots, is a hauntingly experimental meditation on violence, urban alienation, and the blurred boundary between the living and the inanimate.…
![[TRANSLATION] “Riot” by Liu Yichang, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/liu-yichang-and-chris-song-1.png?w=1024)
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Chris Song’s Note: Selected from Hong Kong author Lok Fung’s acclaimed short story collection The Charred City, “A Wayward Wisdom Tooth” recounts the tale of Shevon Kam, a driven beauty executive who endures a decade-long struggle with a decaying wisdom tooth—a…
![[TRANSLATION] “A Wayward Wisdom Tooth” by Lok Fung, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/alireza-heidarpour-46cfxprdjni-unsplash.jpg?w=1024)
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Ma Ka Fai’s note: These are selected excerpts from my novel Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong III (雙天至尊), forthcoming this year. The story’s protagonist, Hon Tien-Yan, is a passionate martial arts enthusiast and an ardent admirer of Bruce Lee.…
![[TRANSLATION] “Master Ip and the Dragonling” by Ma Ka fai, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ma-ka-fai-e9a6ace5aeb6e8bc9d.png?w=1024)
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Chris Song’s note: Roses in the Floating World 浮世薔薇 is the debut novel of Luwei Rose Luqiu 閭丘露薇, bearing an autobiographical touch as it recounts the lives of three generations of women—Miss Zhao, Ruolin, and Xiaoyu. The narrative follows these…
![[TRANSLATION] “𝑅𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 [An Excerpt]” by Luwei Rose Luqiu, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/luwei-rose-luqiu-and-chris-song_cha-an-asian-literary-journal.png?w=1024)
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Chris Song’s note: Haixin 海辛 (1930–2011) was one of Hong Kong’s most prolific realist fiction writers. His deep curiosity about various professions and the lives of ordinary people in Hong Kong, combined with his broad taste in literature, allowed him…
![[TRANSLATION] “Spirits of Cicadas” by Haixin, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/haixin-e6b5b7e8be9b_chris-song.png?w=1024)
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OVERSEAS BRIDE ▞ Mother Tongue Overseas▞ Overseas Bride Jennifer Feeley’s note: Written in 2020 and compiled into Wong Yi’s 2021 short story collection Ways to Love in a Crowded City, “Overseas Bride” delves into the emotional and cultural complexities of emigration, particularly…
![[OVERSEAS BRIDE] “Overseas Bride” by Wong Yi, translated by Jennifer Feeley](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/wong-yi_jennifer-feeley_cha-an-asian-literary-journal.png?w=1024)
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Chris Song’s note: Lü Lun’s “Piano Day” tells the story of May, a Garbo-like beauty who uses her piano sessions to extract tributes from men, ensnaring both T and P in a web of emotional temptation and entanglement. Like Lü Lun’s…
![[TRANSLATION] “Piano Day” by Lü Lun, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/lu-lun-e4beb6e580ab_cha-an-asian-literary-journal.png?w=1024)
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Andrea Lingenfelter’s Note: In “The Legend of a Funambulist”, Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun 潘國靈 takes us on a journey with the tightrope-walker Mantra from his origins in the former Soviet Union, through Cold War Europe, and on to sojourns in New York,…
![[TRANSLATION] “The Legend of a Funambulist” by Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun, Translated by Andrea Lingenfelter](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/lawrence-kwok-ling-pun-e6bd98e59c8be99d88-1.jpg?w=1024)
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Chris Song’s note: In “A Night Flight”, the passengers endure days of eerie silence and mounting despair, with many succumbing to death and some choosing to leap into the night. The story draws a haunting parallel to the Flight MH370…
![[TRANSLATION] “A Night Flight” by Liu Waitong, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/liu-waitong_cha.png?w=1024)
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Chris Song’s Note: “The Charred City” conveys the manic restlessness Hongkongers felt after 1997. The story is set in the stifling social atmosphere of post-Handover Hong Kong, which was “charred”, ironically by pervasive celebratory fireworks. The protagonist, at the behest…
![[TRANSLATION] “The Charred City” by Lok Fung, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/lok-fung-cha-an-asian-literary-journal.jpg?w=1024)
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Vanessa Yee-kwan Wong’s Note: “Nausea” was published in Wong Bik-wan’s 黃碧雲Tenderness and Violence 溫柔與暴烈 (Cosmo Books, 1994). Inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel of the same name (La Nausée, 1938), the story encourages an existentialist reading of Hong Kong’s political precarity…
![[TRANSLATION] “Nausea” by Wong Bik-wan, Translated by Vanessa Yee-kwan Wong](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/wong-bik-wan-1.png?w=940)
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Chris Song’s Note: Lawrence Kwok-ling Pun’s 潘國靈 short story “Twenty Years Since Losing the City” 失城二十年 is a sequel to Wong Bik-wan’s 黃碧雲 canonical short story “Losing the City”, which gruesomely explores the despair Hongkongers felt upon the 1997 Handover and the…
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Chris Song’s Note: Liu Yichang’s 劉以鬯 (1918–2018) short story “Lunar New Year’s Eve” 除夕 imagines the last day of Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹 (1710–1765), author of The Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢, who is believed to have died on Lunar New Year’s…
![[TRANSLATION] “Lunar New Year’s Eve” by Liu Yichang, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/liu-yichang-copy.jpg?w=1024)
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Chris Song’s Note: Chan Hay-ching’s 陳曦靜 short story “Boda’s Borders” 寶達的邊境 was originally written in Chinese and was first published in Hong Kong Literature Bimonthly 城市文藝, No. 105 (April 2020). It was later included in her collection Rocky, a Stray Dog…
![[TRANSLATION] “Boda’s Borders” by Chan Hay-ching, translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/chan-hay-ching-and-chris-song.png?w=934)
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Chris Song’s Note: Xu Dishan wrote “The Gills of the Metal Fish” 鐵魚底鰓 in either 1940 or 1941 when he was living in Hong Kong. Different from his previous fiction with various religious elements, “The Gills of the Metal Fish”…
![[TRANSLATION] “The Gills of the Metal Fish” by Xu Dishan, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/image3-1.jpeg?w=1024)
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TH: We are pleased to present Chris Song’s English translation of Mary Wong’s short story “Christmas Shopping” 聖誕購物, which is collected in Surviving Central 中環人. The story won the 25th Secondary School Students’ Best Ten Books Award. Ⓖ🅁Ⓞ🅄Ⓝ🄳……🄵Ⓛ🄾Ⓞ🅁 “It’s better…
![[TRANSLATION] “Christmas Shopping” BY MARY WONG, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/like.png?w=873)
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TH: Wong King Fai’s short story “The Girl Without a Face” 無相女 was published in the Hong Kong Literary 香港文學 magazine in 2009 and is included in the author’s collection Hong Kong: Mock City 香港：重複的城市. In 2023, it was shortlisted…
![[TRANSLATION] “The Girl Without a Face” by Wong King Fai, Translated by Chris Song](https://chajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/girl-without-a-face_cha-an-asian-literary-journal.jpg?w=1024)
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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[Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997: All Entries] TH: Diary of the Absurd Life in 1997, in 28 sections, was written originally in Chinese by Mary Wong and serialised in Ming Pao 明報 in 1997. The pieces, translated into English by…
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