Description

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE COSTA POETRY AWARD
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION

Flèche (the French word for arrow') is an offensive technique commonly used in fencing, a sport of Mary Jean Chan's young adult years, when they competed locally and internationally for their home city, Hong Kong. This cross-linguistic pun presents the queer, non-white body as both vulnerable (flesh') and weaponised (flèche'), and evokes the difficulties of reconciling one's need for safety alongside the desire to shed one's protective armour in order to fully embrace the world.

Central to the collection is the figure of the poet's mother, whose fragmented memories of political turmoil in twentieth-century China are sensitively threaded through the book in an eight-part poetic sequence, combined with recollections from Chan's childhood. As complex themes of multilingualism, queerness, psychoanalysis and cultural history emerge, so too does a richly imagined personal, maternal and natio

Flche Costa Poetry Award 2019 Faber Poetry

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    A Paperback / softback by Mary Jean Chan

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      Book details

      Publisher Faber & Faber
      Published 4 July 2019
      ISBN-13 9780571348046
      978-0571348046
      ISBN-10 0571348041
      Also in:
      Fiction Poetry

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      WINNER OF THE COSTA POETRY AWARD
      POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION

      Flèche (the French word for arrow') is an offensive technique commonly used in fencing, a sport of Mary Jean Chan's young adult years, when they competed locally and internationally for their home city, Hong Kong. This cross-linguistic pun presents the queer, non-white body as both vulnerable (flesh') and weaponised (flèche'), and evokes the difficulties of reconciling one's need for safety alongside the desire to shed one's protective armour in order to fully embrace the world.

      Central to the collection is the figure of the poet's mother, whose fragmented memories of political turmoil in twentieth-century China are sensitively threaded through the book in an eight-part poetic sequence, combined with recollections from Chan's childhood. As complex themes of multilingualism, queerness, psychoanalysis and cultural history emerge, so too does a richly imagined personal, maternal and natio

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