In this winner of a PEN Translates award, Chinese Malaysian author Ho Sok Fong offers nine stories about women in disturbing or destructive situations unfolding in Malaysia and Taiwan.
There’s a surreal bent to many of the stories in Lake Like a Mirror: everyday logic seems to slip, as if in a dream. It can be just an uncanny shiver ... But some stories go further, sneaking towards magical realism ... the meaning or metaphorical thrust of her work can be hard to grasp, but her writing is beguiling and seasoned with striking imagery ... Ho allows different parts of her stories to hang together lightly, and they may chime more easily for readers with knowledge of Malaysian culture. For those without it, the collection provides a fascinating glimpse, not least into the repressive nature of a strictly Muslim society ... Despite the distilled strangeness of much of Ho’s prose, spending so much time with lethargic, disengaged protagonists can ultimately prove enervating.
Lake Like a Mirror is more evidence, if more were needed, that Chinese-language literature is thriving in Southeast Asia. Ho writes free from the censorship that prevails in mainland China but also behind a linguistic veil that must to at least some extent shield her from the petty tyrannies that can sometimes be imposed by English and the internationalism that comes with it, a veil that is only drawn back for us readers by the efforts of her able translator Natascha Bruce.
... [a] striking, fluid translation ... The nine stories in this second collection are troubling and enigmatic, as they try to make sense of a society that seeks to oppress freedom. In precise and unsettling prose, each one considers, in its own unique way, the words that go unsaid and the lives that go unlived ... Sok Fong uses...multiple women in her narrative. Their lives in captivity blur, as do the traditional structures of storytelling, with elements from the first story bleeding in to the next ... complex, unwieldy ... [some] stories in the collection are less challenging, and arguably offer more pleasure to the reader. Their surrealness is grounded in everyday life, bringing us closer to the characters at the centre. In this, Sok Fung’s collection is reminiscent of the stories of Jan Carson or Diane Cook, or even Miranda July in some of the more offbeat situations.
