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. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people. 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. Nineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. I'm in love with this book.Ī new expanded edition of Zen Cho’s award-winning debut collection. All peppered with Malaysian culture - words, settings, food and habits. Magical people, magical creatures, magical events alongside very everyday life.

Our review: These short stories by Zen Cho are magical and real at the same time, a rare talent for storytelling where you feel like you are experiencing what each narrator encounters. I first published a collection of short stories called Spirits Abroad. And Chang E, the Chinese moon goddess, spins off into outer space – the ultimate metaphor for diaspora.Įnjoy this journey into magical new worlds of the imagination.Trade paperback format. Sorcerer to the Crown is actually a bit different from what I had been writing before. An earth spirit becomes entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord. A mischievous matriarch returns from the dead to disrupt her own funeral rites, pitting granddaughter against granddaughter. Straddling the worlds of the mundane and the magical, SPIRITS ABROAD collects 10 science fiction and fantasy stories with a distinctively Malaysian sensibility. Then a teenage vampire struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love. Not because her lover was an invisible jungle spirit, but because she was Muslim and he was not. We’ll meet an elderly ex-member of parliament, who recalls her youthful romance with an orang bunian. She was the joint winner of the Crawford Award in 2015 for her short story collection Spirits Abroad. These nineteen sparkling stories are full of joy, humour and tenderness. She is known for her Sorcerer to the Crown series. Taking us from the mundane to the magical, this award-winning collection will entertain and delight.ĭrawing inspiration from Asian myth and folklore, Zen Cho guides the reader through enchanted realms inhabited by dragons, vampires and incorrigible grandmothers. Spirits Abroad Zen Cho 4.

Spirits abroad zen cho