Weaving the Nest: A Companion to Migratory Birds

"Weaving the Nest" is a sequel to Xixi's autobiographical novel "Migratory Birds." It reweaves reality and fiction, fiction, and time.

In 1981, Xixi began serializing her autobiographical novel "Migratory Birds" in Hong Kong's "Express", and concluded it more than a year later, in 1982, with a total of 300,000 words. Later, the 180,000-word volume, which began with the protagonist "Sister Susu's" self-narration, was published as the first volume of "Migratory Birds" in 1991 (Hongfan Bookstore); and the more than 100,000 words about "Sister Yanyan" were not published in a book for decades.

In 2017, Xixi added to the remaining 100,000 words of "Migratory Birds," narrated primarily by her younger sister Yanyan, and incorporated a new narrative from her older sister Susu, as well as "Xixi's mother's 1960s autobiographical novel," and "a ten-thousand-word autobiographical letter from Xixi's second aunt in Henan"—thus, a four-part chorus, the text presented in four different scripts. These autobiographical materials, told from different perspectives by family members across two generations, allowed Xixi to use a delicate and masterful interweaving of reality and fiction to break through the barriers of time and space, magically weaving them all together like a weaver bird building a nest and starting a family, creating a new novel that is both independent of time and space, yet also interconnected with "Migratory Birds": "Weaving the Nest."

2018-08-03

洪範

272

9789576743443