| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 303 pages) : illustrations. |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Series |
American lives
|
|
American lives.
|
| Summary |
In This Fish Is Fowl Xu Xi offers the transnational and feminist perspective of a contemporary "glocalized" American life. Xu's quirky, darkly comic, and obsessively personal essays emerge from her diverse professional career as a writer, business executive, entrepreneur, and educator. From her origins in Hong Kong as an Indonesian of Chinese descent to her U.S. citizenship and multiple countries of residence, she writes her way around the globe. Caring for her mother with Alzheimer's in Hong Kong becomes the rhythmic accompaniment to an enforced, long-term, long-distance relationship with her partner and home in New York. In between Xu reflects on all her selves, which are defined by those myriad monikers of existence. As an author who began life as a novelist and fiction writer, she also considers the nature of genre, which snakes its way through these essays. In her linguistic trip across the comic tragedy that is globalism, she wonders about the mystery of humanity and the future of our world at this complicated and precarious moment in human existence. This Fish Is Fowl is a twenty-first-century blend of the essayist traditions of both West and East. Xu's acerbic, deft prose shows her to be a descendant of both Michel de Montaigne and Lu Xun, with influences from stepparent Jonathan Swift. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references. |
| Contents |
To be American -- Why I stopped being Chinese -- Citizenship -- BG: the significant years -- Default home -- Letter from America -- Winter moon -- The summers of my discontent -- The crying city -- Typhoon mum -- Maternity leave -- My mother's story -- Mum and me -- Precarious precision -- Journeys through past times: a Norwich narrative -- Home base -- And then, filial time -- Off-season with snake -- Waiting women -- For as long as we both shall live -- Feminism and faith -- On being fowl -- Concubine love -- A ledge, a nun -- The English of my story -- Ambition game -- The book that saved my writing life -- To loaf, or how not to write a CV -- The door is close -- By any other name. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Xu, Xi, 1954-
|
|
Xu, Xi, 1954- |
|
Authors, Chinese -- 20th century -- Biography.
|
|
Authors, Chinese. |
| Chronological Term |
20th century |
| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
| Subject |
Women authors, Chinese -- 20th century -- Biography.
|
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Women authors, Chinese. |
|
Glocalization.
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Glocalization. |
| Chronological Term |
1900-1999 |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
|
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Autobiographies.
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Autobiographies.
|
| Added Title |
Essays. Selections https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2018058809
|
| ISBN |
9781496215079 (electronic book) |
|
1496215079 (electronic book) |
|
9781496215093 (electronic book) |
|
1496215095 (electronic book) |
|
9781496206824 (paperback ; alkaline paper) |
|
1496206827 (paperback ; alkaline paper) |
|
