The Heartsick Diaspora, and other stories

by Elaine Chiew

Overview

Her stories are interlaced with humour, compassion and the importance of food and cooking, and the memories meals evoke, as her characters negotiate unfamiliar worlds, raise children in another country or introduce parents to partners who don’t speak their language. In the title story, four writers find their cultural bonds of friendship tested when a handsome young Asian man joins their group. In other stories, a brother searches for his sister forced to serve as a comfort woman during World War Two; three Singaporean sisters run a French gourmet restaurant in New York; a woman raps about being a Tiger Mother in Belgravia; and a filmmaker struggles to document the lives of Samsui women—Singapore’s thrifty, hardworking construction workers. Elaine Chiew drills below the surface of her characters’ circumstances with exemplary narrative skill and subtlety. Her stories are as varied, worldly and emotionally resonant as the characters themselves. This is a fabulous debut collection and heralds an exciting new literary talent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912408368
Publisher:	Myriad Editions
Publication date:	04/14/2020
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.07(w) x 7.79(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Elaine Chiew is a writer and a visual arts researcher, and editor of Cooked Up: Food Fiction From Around the World (New Internationalist, 2015).

Twice winner of the Bridport Short Story Competition, she has published numerous stories in anthologies in the UK, US and Singapore.

Originally from Malaysia, Chiew graduated from Stanford Law School and worked as a corporate securities lawyer in New York and Hong Kong before studying for an MA in Asian Art History at Lasalle College of the Arts Singapore, a degree conferred by Goldsmiths, University of London.

Elaine lives in Singapore and her collection of short stories, The Heartsick Diaspora, and other stories is available to buy now.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'In The Heartsick Diaspora, Elaine Chiew allows us to visit a breadth of experiences among Chinese migrant communities, both past and present. The range of the emotional worlds of the characters represented in the book is depicted in fragments, echoing the disjointed, often repressed manner in which many of the immigrant families communicate with one another. The stories do an outstanding job of capturing an atmosphere that is recognisable, but presented in fresh tales to engage the mind and heart of the reader, even as they entertain. It is a brilliant first collection by Chiew, marking her as a writer to be watched.' – Shelly Bryant

‘Elaine Chiew’s short stories are hugely incisive. Here is a satisfying mix of poignancy and humour, light and dark – an unforgettable journey into the hearts and minds of the displaced. Chiew brings original and multiple award-winning skills to great effect in these sparklingly intelligent explorations of identity and displacement. The added charge in Chiew’s work comes from her impressive range—her clever, nuanced and varied stories are perfectly balanced.’ – Vanessa Gebbie

‘The Heartsick Diaspora is an unflinching examination of the hybrid and hyphenated lives of global nomads, shining a bright light on Singaporean-Chinese voices, but also the larger Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese diaspora. It is philosophical and poetic in turns, and stories like ‘Face’ and ‘The Heartsick Diaspora’ and ‘Mapping Three Lives’ are absolutely stunning. Memorably populated with characters who linger in the mind long after the last story ends, this book is a truly impressive debut, full of humour and heart.’ – Dipika Mukherjee

‘A spectacular read! What a handsome showcase of the consummate storyteller Elaine Chiew. Hers is a winning voice, working in pathos with great élan. We become witness to such a rich understanding of human emotion and desire. Elaine lets scene and character speak for themselves, with such self-assured perspicacity.’ – Desmond Kon Zhicheng-mingde

‘Elaine Chiew’s witty stories in The Heartsick Diaspora offer us a rich palette of feelings and experiences that often converge: humour, melancholy, rage, and tenderness. Issues of race, ethnicity, and cultural identities are embedded in the everyday—in the kitchen, on the bus, or at school—as characters navigate between connection and isolation, visibility and invisibility, familiarity and distance.’ – Intan Paramaditha

‘The characters in Elaine Chiew's wonderful and vibrant collection are drawn with so much insight, humor, and compassion. It is an original and beautiful collection.’ – Karen E. Bender

‘The Heartsick Diaspora is thoughtful, complex, emotionally resonant, both aware of the need to establish its own truth and of the danger that need involves... The stories are as deeply felt as they are, on occasion, playful; there’s a kind of impertinence of tone, a creative intelligence that lets Chiew get up skin-close and yet maintain a distance that allows her, and us, to see the larger picture.’ – Charles Lambert

Editorial Reviews

This compelling collection is packed with prize winning stories alongside new works, and is the result of Chiew’s own journey of personal discovery and identity. A striking and important debut.

Han Clark

The Heartsick Diaspora was a wonderful read throughout and is here definitely recommended. To carry all the history, the changes, the diversity of location, people and families and do it faultlessly through a series of stories with barely a flicker of fault in any is a major achievement. Each story is a dense little gem in itself, a meaty little tale packed with so much information, hinting at so much more. As a collection – building the foundations of the others even deeper – they are outstanding. I will be seeking out anything else Chiew is writing – she is a very, very, good writer.

Hilary White

Chiew’s prose is intelligent and funny and reveals a range rarely seen in story collections.

Leland Cheuk

Innovative in format and original in content, The Heartsick Diaspora is clever, multilayered, challenging and political. It’s also full of verve and wit.

Monica Ali

'Riffing on the collisions between tradition and modernity, Elaine Chiew’s winsome, playful, and sometimes wistful short story collection The Heartsick Diaspora hopscotches across continents and time periods, focusing on Malaysians at home and abroad. Leavened with well-observed humor, and peppered with moments of pathos and poignant reflections on cultural difference, The Heartsick Diaspora is a stimulating and varied collection.' – Ho Lin, Foreward Reviews Five Gifted New Authors

Ho Lin

'In The Heartsick Diaspora, Elaine Chiew allows us to visit a breadth of experiences among Chinese migrant communities, both past and present. The range of the emotional worlds of the characters represented in the book is depicted in fragments, echoing the disjointed, often repressed manner in which many of the immigrant families communicate with one another. The stories do an outstanding job of capturing an atmosphere that is recognisable, but presented in fresh tales to engage the mind and heart of the reader, even as they entertain. It is a brilliant first collection by Chiew, marking her as a writer to be watched.' – Shelly Bryant

Shelly Bryant

'Elaine’s debut collection is masterfully written. Set in Singapore, England and the US, the stories are multilayered, diverse and rich in content, unsentimental yet poignant. I can’t recommend it enough. If you were to read only short story collection this year, let this be the one. You won’t be disappointed.' – Chiew-Siah Tei, author of Hut of Little Leaping Fishes and The Mousedeer Kingdom

Chiew-Siah Tei

This debut collection looks at Singaporeans and Malaysians living in diaspora in short stories that are wickedly funny or melancholic.

Olivia Ho

‘"Innovative in format and original in content, The Heartsick Diaspora is clever, multilayered, challenging and political. It’s also full of verve and wit."—Monica Ali

From the Publisher