Fitzcarraldo Editions’ associate publisher Tamara Sampey-Jawad has acquired UK & Commonwealth ex Canada rights to Owlish, the first novel by Dorothy Tse – one of Hong Kong’s most celebrated writers – from Kelly Falconer at the Asia Literary Agency. Ethan Nosowsky and Anni Liu at Graywolf Press will publish simultaneously in the US in spring 2023. The novel will be translated by PEN Heim-winner Natascha Bruce, and is Fitzcarraldo’s first Chinese-language acquisition.
Unfulfilled in his marriage and his career, middle-aged Professor Q embarks on a doomed love affair with a doll called Alice. Obsessed with his new love, he fails to notice that sinister forces are encroaching on his city – until the security of his own life is called into question. Set in an alternate Honk Kong, Owlish is a boldly inventive wake-up call, forcing readers to confront the perils of apathy, complacency and indifference.
One of the founders of the Hong Kong literary magazine Fleurs des lettres, Dorothy Tse currently lives in Hong Kong, where she teaches creative writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her awards include the Hong Kong Book Prize, Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature, Taiwan’s Unitas New Fiction Writers’ Award, and the Hong Kong Award for Creative Writing in Chinese. Dorothy has published five short-story collections in Chinese, and has garnered attention in English since the 2014 publication of her collection Snow and Shadow (translated by Nicky Harman; longlisted for 2015 Best Translated Book Award). With translator Natascha Bruce, Dorothy was a winner of the 2019 Words Without Borders Poems in Translation Prize.
