Full Description
A Sino-Chinese family find their destiny is inseparably entangled with that of the country they have adopted as a home. Not long before the Communist revolution, Tong, sent by his peasant-parents in impoverished rural China to work with a relative in Siam, has risen to become a rice-trading tycoon in Bangkok's Chinatown, married a former palace cook and built a large family in the town of Pad Riew. Haunted by the dream of returning to his true home in China, Tong, along with his wife and their five children, are swept along by the torrents of history as World War II breakout and China turns red, while the military strongman in Thailand act out the interminable cycle of power struggle, rebellion and coup d'état.
Memories of the Memories of the Black Rose Cat, the award-winning second novel by Veerapon Nitiprapha, is a generations-spanning family saga that explores the roots of the Chinese diaspora in Siam and how the tragedy of ruined love, maternal betrayal and futile ambition shape the lives of Tong's clan members, each of them hounded by their own ghosts and burdened by their own sins. All of this is played out against the backdrop of Siam's mid-century social and political history, the most chaotic period the formation of the nation.
Contents
The Land at the Edge of the Horizon 13
Jealous Child 21
The Black Rose Cat 31
The Dancing Lamplight 39
The Porcelain Flowerpot with 49
the Chrysanthemum Pattern
The Half-Moon 57
The Eyes of a Distant Dog 65
The Chinese Weeping Willow 73
in the Southern Land
Mute Buay's Recipes 81
The Milky Way 89
Seven Bored Bithes 97
The Sanctuary of Souls 105
Moth Wings, Stained with Dry Tears 113
The Rain Room 121
Teacher Crowing Rooster 129
Calm After the Storm 137
The Primitive Tribal Warrior 147
The City of Smoke 157
Song of the Yellow Oriole 167
When the River Dreamed 175
A Sailor's Miniature Boat 185
Year of the Sunset 195
The Drifter 203
Cherry Blossoms in the Mist 209
The Adopted Child 217
A Thousand Suns 229
The Forever-Closed Doors 239
The Culinary Murder 251
Arrival of the Snow Crow 259
The Ash-Coloured Light 269
The Ever-Blossoming Peony 279
Inside a Glass Paperweight
The Most Beautiful Woman in the Universe 291
A Land with no Memory 303
Moon Train 315
