Spirits Abroad
Ratings9
Average rating4.3
Winner of the LA Times/Ray Bradbury Prize Nineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Spirits Abroad is an expanded edition of Zen Cho’s Crawford Award winning debut collection with nine added stories including Hugo Award winner “If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again.” A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people. An earth spirit gets entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord, and Chang E spins off into outer space, the ultimate metaphor for the Chinese diaspora.
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4.5 stars
a nice collection of short stories from zen cho. i really enjoy her prose, it's very... practical.
my favourites:
- The House of Aunts ♥
- Odette
- One Day Travelcard for Fairyland
- Prudence and the Dragon ♥
- The Earth Spirit's Favorite Anecdote ♥
- Monkey King, Faerie Queen ♥
- The Terra-cotta Bride ♥
Zen Cho is my new favourite short story writer. Generally I find magic realism exhausting and irrelevant (García Márquez). Spirits Abroad is the first work I've read whose magical elements complement the stories—which pulse with inventiveness and humour.
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