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We talked to the author of "Tongueless" about how Cantonese is disappearing from Hong Kong schools, and what literature can do to raise awareness.

Our guest this month is Lau Yee-Wa, one of Hong Kong's most exciting emerging fiction writers, whose debut novel Tongueless (The Feminist Press, 2024) came out in English last summer, translated by Jennifer Feeley. Lau studied literature and then philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she also started writing poetry. She worked as an editor in a publishing house, and her 2016 short story "The Shark" won the Hong Kong Champion Award for Creative Writing. Tongueless (失语) is her first novel, published in 2019 in Chinese. We were delighted to be joined by Lau Yee-wa to talk about the novel, Hong Kong identity, language and education, and the changes that has been undergoing in recent years.

The China Books Podcast is a companion of China Books Review, a project of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and The Wire China. For any queries or comments, please write to editor[at]chinabooksreview.com.

Ep. 17: Lau Yee-Wa on Hong Kong Fiction