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WORK TITLE: The Borrowed
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Chan, Ho-Kei
BIRTHDATE:
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Chan is family name * http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15236323.Chan_Ho_Kei * http://www.groveatlantic.com/?title=The+Borrowed * http://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/the-borrowed-by-chan-ho-kei/
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Title: Mr.
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LC control no.: no2017016470
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2017016470
HEADING: Chan, Ho-Kei, 1975-
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374 __ |a Authors |2 lcsh
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670 __ |a DNB via VIAF Feb. 7, 2017 |b (Chan, Ho-Kei, 1975-)
670 __ |a OCLC Feb. 7, 2017 |b (Chan, Ho-Kei = 陳浩基 = Chen, Haoji)
PERSONAL
Born 1975, in Hong Kong, China.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, 2008–. Also worked as a software engineer, game designer, scriptwriter, and editor of comic magazines.
AWARDS:Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award, 2009, for The Locked Room of Bluebeard; Soji Shimada Award, 2011, for The Man Who Sold the World; Taipei Book Fair Award, 2015, for 13.67.
WRITINGS
Author of the Chinese-language novels The Locked Room of Bluebeard and The Man Who Sold the World. Work represented in anthologies, including S.T.E.P., Crown (Taiwan), 2015. Author of short stories.
SIDELIGHTS
Chan Ho-Kei was born in 1975 in Hong Kong, when it was still a dependent territory of the United Kingdom. He grew up there, a witness to the turbulent years that preceded the British handover of the territory to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, and to the metamorphosis of the technically autonomous region thereafter. Chan worked as a software engineer and game designer. He became an editor of manga comics and a scriptwriter, but by the year 2008 he was gaining attention as an award-winning author of crime fiction.
In 2011 Chan received the Soji Shimada Award for the Chinese-language work The Man Who Sold the World. It is the story of a man who may or may not be homicide detective Xu Youyi–or may be Yan Zhicheng, the actual murder suspect himself. Even Xu/Yan does not know the answer; his memory of the six years since the murder is a confusing fog of images that he is desperate to penetrate. The novel was optioned for foreign production, primarily throughout Asia.
Chan’s next novel, 13.67, would introduce him to a Western readership in the English translation, The Borrowed. “The book is greater than the sum of its parts,” announced the description at the Books from Taiwan website. That is because The Borrowed is not only a crime novel presented in an unusual, reverse-order structure, but it also highlights critical events in the history of the city. Furthermore, the perspective is not that of the typical English-speaking expatriate sleuth, as Melanie Ho reported in the Asian Review of Books: it reflects “a truly local point of view.”
The Borrowed covers nearly five decades in the career of legendary Hong Kong police investigator Kwan Chun-dok–in the form of six standalone novellas that begin in 2013, when Kwan is on his deathbed. A high-profile billionaire has been murdered, and Inspector Sonny Lok knows that his former mentor is the only detective who can solve the murder in time to avert disaster. He does not know that threads from the fabric of this case stretch back to the very beginning of Kwan’s illustrious career.
Each novella sets one of Kwan’s most momentous cases in an important period of Hong Kong history, a history in which the Hong Kong police force has always played a significant role, for better or worse. In the year 2003 the city was paralyzed with fear of the lethal respiratory disease known as SARS, and the police were hard-pressed to enforce quarantines and maintain public order. In 1997 the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from British control to Chinese authority. Financial crises and the H5 avian flu epidemic threatened a city already under stress from the uncertainty of a future under Communist rule. Before that, the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and subsequent massacre in Beijing caused social unrest that was felt as far away as Hong Kong. In 1977 it was local scandals unearthed by the governor’s Independent Commission against Corruption that triggered a massive shakeup in Kwan’s own department. The novel ends ten years earlier when leftist riots and bomb threats against British colonial rule in 1967 left thousands of rioters in jail and more than fifty people dead. The intrepid Kwan makes his way through all of it, unearthing clues that no one else can see, making mistakes along the way and learning from them, and inspiring a young protégé to follow in his mentor’s footsteps.
Critics found much to admire in Chan’s combination of history lesson and crime novel. The novellas collectively explore themes of “love, honour, race, class, jealousy and revenge,” observed a reviewer at the Crime Fiction Lover website. As an example of what Chan dubs social history, Amy Ng commented in Asian Ave, “the historical and cultural nuance in this novel gives a unique twist on a classic detective story, … and nothing is ever as it seems.” Multiple reviewers learned that, in Hong Kong, some things never change. Kwan’s last case completes a circle that began in 1967, only to be revealed in the very last line of the very last page.
According to a Kirkus Reviews commentator, “Chan’s strong suit is procedural plotting,” at which he “displays a formidable mastery.” Christine Tran reported in Booklist that The Borrowed “is a strong collection … driven by flawless deductive reasoning and thoughtful character development.” “The puzzles are all brain teasers,” wrote a reviewer at Literary Treats, and “the stories are all compelling and character-driven.” She enjoyed becoming acquainted with Kwan in reverse, “as he is revealed to be increasingly more vulnerable.” She also called Hong Kong “a vivid character in its own right.” In the Asian Review of Books, Ho noted that “There’s a richness to Chan’s descriptions.” In summary, wrote Margaret Cannon in the Toronto Globe and Mail, The Borrowed is not only “highly informative,” but also “great fun.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, December 1, 2016, Christine Tran, review of The Borrowed, p. 28.
Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), March 24, 2017, Margaret Cannon, review of The Borrowed.
Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2016, review of The Borrowed.
Publishers Weekly, November 21, 2016, review of The Borrowed, p. 91.
ONLINE
Asian Ave, http://asianavemag.com/ (June 5, 2017), Amy Ng, review of The Borrowed.
Asian Review of Books, http://asianreviewofbooks.com/ (March 25, 2017), Melanie Ho, review of The Borrowed.
Asia Times, http://www.atimes.com/ (May 13, 2017), Melanie Ho, author interview.
Books from Taiwan, http://booksfromtaiwan.tw/ (September 6, 2017), author profile.
Crime Fiction Lover, http://www.crimefictionlover.com/ (August 19, 2016), review of The Borrowed.
Hong Kong International Literary Festival Website, http://www.festival.org.hk/ (September 6, 2017), author profile.
Literary Treats, https://literarytreats.com/ (April 18, 2017), review of The Borrowed.
Metropoli d’Asia, http://www.metropolidasia.it/ (September 6, 2017), book description.
South China Morning Post Online, http://www.scmp.com/ (March 28, 2017), Melanie Ho, review of The Borrowed.
Chan Ho-Kei
CHAN HO-KEI was raised in Hong Kong. He has won the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award for his short stories, and in 2011, his debut novel, The Man Who Sold the World, won the Soji Shimada Mystery Award, the most prestigious mystery award in the Chinese-speaking world. It has been published in five countries.
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CHAN HO-KEI
Chan Ho-kei was born and raised in Hong Kong. He made his debut as a writer in 2008 with the short story “The Murder Case of Jack and the Beanstalk,” which was shortlisted for the sixth Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award. Chan reentered and won this award in the next year with “The Locked Room of Bluebeard.” In 2011, Chan’s novel The Man Who Sold the World won the biggest mystery award in the Chinese-speaking world, the Soji Shimada Award. The rights to his 2014 novel, The Borrowed, have been sold in over 10 countries and the film rights were sold to director Wong Kar-wai. His new book, In the Net, is a story about cyberbullying, social networks, hackers and vengeance.
陳浩基於香港土生土長。2008年以童話推理作品《傑克魔豆殺人事件》入圍第六屆「台灣推理作家協會徵文獎」決選，翌年又以續作《藍鬍子的密室》贏得首獎。2011年，他以《遺忘．刑警》獲得「島田莊司推理小說獎」首獎。他的長篇作品《13．67》售出十多國版權，並獲知名導演王家衛買下電影版權。最新作品是以網上欺凌、社交網絡、黑客及復仇為主題的推理小說《網內人》。
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Chan Ho-Kei
陳浩基
Chan Ho-Kei
Chan Ho-Kei was born and raised in Hong Kong. He has worked as software engineer, scriptwriter, game designer and editor of comic magazines. His writing career started in 2008 at the age of thirty-three, with the short story ‘The Case of Jack and the Beanstalk,’ which was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award. He went on to win the award again the following year with ‘The Locked Room of Bluebeard.’
In 2011, Chan’s first novel, THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD, won the biggest mystery prize in the Chinese-speaking world, the Soji Shimada Mystery Award, and has subsequently been published in Taiwan (Crown), China (New Star), Japan (Bungeishunsha), Thailand (Nanmee) and Italy (Metropoli d’Asia).
BOOKS
S.T.E.P.
THE BORROWED
Mixing science fiction and the gritty realism of the best of the crime genre, these stories are like four speeding bullets fired by two of the Chinese-speaking world’s most original mystery writers.
Category: Science Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Crown
Date: 2015/3
Pages: 336
Length: 170,000 characters
(approx. 110,000 words in English)
.....
THE BORROWED
* Author Chan Ho-Kei
* Translator Gigi Chang
* Illustrator
* 2015 Taipei Book Fair Award
*
* "THE BORROWED by Chan Ho-Kei s a unique crime novel from Hong Kong, not only telling the life of an exceptional detective by going backwards in time, but also telling the history of Hong Kong itself. A profund masterpiece on humanity, history and murder." -Tim Jung, Publishing Director at Atrium Verlag AG
*
The Borrowed is the story of Kwan Chun-Dok, a Hong Kong police officer who rises from constable to senior superintendent over the span of forty-six years (1967-2013), becoming a legend in the force as he does so. The book is divided into six chapters, each a stand-alone novella dealing witith an important case in Kwan’s career and taking place at a pivotal time in Hong Kong history: the riots of 1967, the conflict between the HK Police and the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) in 1977, the Handover in 1997, the SARS epidemic in 2003 and one last case in 2013, when Hong Kong is turning into a police state, a chillingly accurate portrait seemingly foreshadowing the Occupy Central movement.
What makes The Borrowed unique is not just the structure, but the way the story is told in reverse-chronological order. The novel begins in 2013, with Kwan solving his final case on his deathbed, and goes back in time, finally reaching 1967, when he defuses a bomb plot and saves the life of a British inspector. The six chapters are linked in ways big and small. The novel’s real twist, however, comes at the end of the novel, in the very last line. Only then do the connections reveal themselves, that history is destined to repeat itself and how we have come full circle.
The Borrowed is the portrait of a brilliant, Holmes-esque detective, as well as a chronicle of Hong Kong over the past fifty years. Although each chapter is a self-sustained, carefully constructed mystery, <
*
* Category: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Crown
Date: 2014/6
Pages: 496
Length: 280,000 characters
* (approx. 150,000 words in English)
*
[#Not about Chan!]
Issue 6
China Times Open Book Award
Bologna Ragazzi Award
China Times Literary Award
Chiu Ko Fiction Prize
Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award
Macmillan Prize
Chen Bochui Children’s Literature Award
Wu San-Lien Award
Soji Shimada Mystery Award
Golden Tripod Award
Taiwan Literary Award
For general inquiries, please contact booksfromtaiwan.rights@gmail.com.
For translation grants, please contact books@moc.gov.tw
#
Issue 6
China Times Open Book Award
Bologna Ragazzi Award
China Times Literary Award
Chiu Ko Fiction Prize
Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award
Macmillan Prize
Chen Bochui Children’s Literature Award
Wu San-Lien Award
Soji Shimada Mystery Award
Golden Tripod Award
Taiwan Literary Award
For general inquiries, please contact booksfromtaiwan.rights@gmail.com.
For translation grants, please contact books@moc.gov.tw
Copyright © 2015-2017 Ministry of Culture, Taiwan (R.O.C.) | http://english.moc.gov.tw/ | Tel +886-2-8512-6000 Ministry of Culture, Taiwan (R.O.C.) Vistors: 319868
http://www.metropolidasia.it/libro-dettaglio-world-rights.php?id_lib=22&lang=en
Downloaded September 6, 2017
Chan Ho Kei
Yiwang Xingjing. The Man who Sold the World
Genre: Detective Novel
Pages: 280
Origin: Hong Kong
Xu Youyi wakes up in his car. He doesn't remember why he didn't sleep at home and how he got to that park so far form his district. Smelling his jacket he understands that maybe he is having an awful hung over. He can't remember what happened the night before, and the previous ones.
Everything for him is usual but at the same time oddly unfamiliar. The only thing clear in his mind is the image of two corpses bleeding on the floor: the sensational murder he is investigating. And this is quite strange because his lapse of memory is far greater than he has thought: the murder happened six years before.
The case has already been solved but something in the reconstruction of the events doesn't match. With the help of a young journalist, Xu Yuoyi starts working on a different trail which lead to a suspect ignored by the previous investigation.
The journalist therefore asks for an identikit of the suspect and when she discovers that he is the man who is standing in front of her, everything seems to rush to a tragic ending. Who is really the policeman? Is he Yan Zhicheng or Xu Youyi? Is he the murderer?... As in great detective stories nothing would be completely clear until the last piece is set.
About the author: Chan Ho Kei is a young computer scientist who had been in various careers; he worked as a software engineer, a script writer, a game designer and an editor of comic magazines. His debut as a writer is dated 2008, when his short story The Murder Case of Jack and the Beanstalk has been shortlisted in the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award.
With the novel The Locked Room of Bluebeard he won the following edition of the award. The Man who Sold the World is his latest novel. Winner of the second edition of the Soji Shimada Award it has been published in Taiwan and will be published in China, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia.
Focus on: Winner of the Soji Shimada Mystery Award (Taiwan - 2011). A gripping plot with an unexpected twist at the end. A puzzle with an inconceivable but perfectly logical solution.
Ho-kei, Chan: THE BORROWED
Kirkus Reviews.
(Nov. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Ho-kei, Chan THE BORROWED Black Cat/Grove (Adult Fiction) $16.00 1, 3 ISBN: 978-0-8021-2588-0
Like Columbo but not funny.This is Soji Shimada Mystery Award winner Chan's first novel to be translated into
English; it's a lengthy, ambitious tale about a legendary detective named Kwan Chun-dok, examining his career from
the mid-1960s to the present day--and examining Kwan's beat, Hong Kong, during those fraught, turbulent years.
Arranged in free-standing but interconnected novellas, proceeding in reverse chronological order, the book charts
Kwan's evolution from savvy field investigator to head of the force's intelligence division against the backdrop of such
historical events as the 1967 leftist riot, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, and the epochal handover of 1997.
Through these juxtapositions, Chan attempts to embroider both cultural history and psychological character study, but
he fails to profitably exploit his setting or word count in this aim; the historical details provide sporadically engaging
window dressing, but Chan's characters seldom address them directly, and Kwan himself remains something of a
cipher, a genius at deduction with a generic, Tintin-like good-guy effect. <
meat of the book is Kwan's crime-solving, and the author <
exposition in scenarios involving such calumny as an escaped nemesis bent on revenge, a kidnapping, and a series of
terrorist bombings. Institutional corruption and the public's growing mistrust of the police emerge as the narrative's
glum, overarching themes, lending the backward storytelling scheme a melancholy poignancy--but, despite Chan's
aspirations to historical, cultural, and psychological insight, the real satisfaction here is found in the meat-and-potatoes
cops-and-robbers material. Sprawling and dense, this novel will satisfy your procedural jones, but don't look for more
than a cursory reckoning with the troubled history of Hong Kong.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Ho-kei, Chan: THE BORROWED." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Nov. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468389136&it=r&asid=f23be4d0de399418a480d50b49f9c06d.
Accessed 5 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468389136
---
9/5/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1504636740255 2/3
The Borrowed
Christine Tran
Booklist.
113.7 (Dec. 1, 2016): p28.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Borrowed.
By Chan Ho-Kei. Tr. by Jeremy Tiang.
Jan. 2017. 496p. Black Cat, paper, $16 (9780802125880); e book, $16 (9780802189820).
In six related novellas, Chan Ho-Kei tracks backward through iconic detective Kwan Chun-dok's police career, his
relationship with protege Sonny Lok, and six decades of Hong Kong's history. Ho-kei creates powerful social
commentary by framing classic mystery stories within pivotal events, such as the anxiety-ridden chaos surrounding
Hong Kong's 1997 changeover from UK to Chinese governance, and the 1960s terrorist attacks against the British
government. In "The Prisoner's Dilemma," Kwan coaches Lok in his philosophy of serving the greater good by
embracing the gray areas outside of police protocol when they take on the triads to solve the murder of a teenage pop
star. In "The Balance of Themis," a tense mashup of police procedural and investigative logic will force readers to the
edge of their seats as Kwan eschews protocol in a deadly hostage situation. Award-winning Hong Kong author Ho-kei's
English-language debut<< is a strong collection>> of classic mysteries <
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Tran, Christine. "The Borrowed." Booklist, 1 Dec. 2016, p. 28+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA474718206&it=r&asid=620eb5d01f9bc0372489261973952a71.
Accessed 5 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A474718206
---
9/5/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1504636740255 3/3
The Borrowed
Publishers Weekly.
263.47 (Nov. 21, 2016): p91.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* The Borrowed
Chan Ho-kei, trans. from the Chinese by Jeremy Tang. Black Cat, $16 trade paper (496p) ISBN 978-0-8021-2588-0
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Retired detective Kwon Chun-dok, the Sherlock Holmes--like hero of this ambitious episodic crime novel set in Hong
Kong from Chan (The Man Who Sold the World), is on his deathbed in 2013, working on a murder case with the aid of
his mentee, Insp. Sunny Lok. Subsequent sections, introduced in reverse chronological order, focus on the infamous
triads of Hong Kong organized crime (in 2003), the transfer of sovereignty from the U.K. to China (in 1997), the
Tiananmen Square riots (in 1989), and more. Trained in England, the brilliant Chun-dok has been a great success,
"silently filling a glorious page of the history of Hong Kong policing." The mysteries he solves, as clever as they may
be, can feel a bit old-fashioned. The author's real goal is to tell a history of modern Hong Kong, as Chan explains in his
afterword. As a "social narrative" of the city, to use his phrase, the story is fascinating. Agent: Markus Hoffmann^Regal
Floffmann & Associates. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Borrowed." Publishers Weekly, 21 Nov. 2016, p. 91. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471273956&it=r&asid=9a932103ca2b16a2a098c252eaff2583.
Accessed 5 Sept. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A471273956
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Melanie Ho 25 March 2017 Fiction, Reviews
“The Borrowed” by Chan Ho-Kei
borrowed
Kwan Chun-dok is “the genius detective… the man who never forgets a place, and can identify a suspect just from the way he walks.” And even in a coma, in what might be his last day of life, Kwan, known as the “Eye of Heaven”, is going solve one final murder.
It’s not often that English readers have the opportunity to take a look at Hong Kong from <>
Chan Ho-kei’s The Borrowed spans Kwan’s 50-year career with the Hong Kong Police Force. Told in six distinct novellas in reverse chronological order, Chan begins in 2013 with the murder of a Hong Kong billionaire, before moving back in time to significant years in the city’s history: the Handover in 1997, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the 1977 conflict between the Hong Kong Police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and, finally—or is this really the start?—the 1967 Leftist riots.
Hong Kong’s Chan won the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award for his short stories, while his 2011 debut The Man Who Sold the World won the Soji Shimada Mystery Award. The Borrowed was published as 13.67 in Chinese in 2015; the English edition arrives via a translation by Jeremy Tiang.
Kwan is a legend in the Hong Kong Police Force and his ability to interpret clues and delve into the psychology behind criminal masterminds lead him to achieve a “100 per cent success rate”. Together with his team, including his subordinate Sonny Lok, Kwan makes for the classic cerebral detective—able to spot even the slightest non-clue and yet sensitive to the human emotions that drive the crime in the first place.
It’s not often that English readers have the opportunity to take a look at Hong Kong from a truly local point of view. Gone are the expats in Wan Chai found in, say, typical Hong Kong English-language noir and its place are some wonderful details that perhaps would be missed by less local observers. One of the suspects in Kwan and Lok’s final case, for example, compares the billionaire’s family dramas to “some crappy eight o’clock soap”; characters are not in expat enclaves and “not having driven, would have to take a minibus home”; an apartment described as being about 400 square feet is said to be “plenty of space for a bachelor.” The plainness of language also works when describing Hong Kong’s underground. “It was as Ah Gut said: Yam Tak-ngok was very patient, for a Triad leader.”
,<
Mong Kok was dazzling as always. The multicoloured neon lights, glittering shop windows, throngs of pedestrians — as if the city knew no night. This bustling scene was a microcosm of Hong Kong, a city that relied on finance and consumption for survival, though these pillars were not as sturdy as people supposed.
While each novella reads like a self-contained classic detective story, Chan is also trying to paint a bigger picture, with the story behind the story slowly revealed as the reader is taken back in time. He succeeds; with each subsequent novella, the reader understands how the past has influenced present decisions—for better or worse.
Occasionally, however, Chan has a tendency to explain his characters’ biographical details as though he was writing an executive summary:
Sonny Lok had graduated from the Police Academy aged seventeen, and was now twice that age. He was fairly bright and enthusiastic, but his luck wasn’t good — and his misfortunes, coupled with his introverted personality, meant his personal [sic][1] file was filled with criticism. In the Hong Kong Police Force, promotion is earned not just by passing a test but, more importantly, by having a clean record. Hence Lok was overjoyed to receive his probationary inspectorship in 1999…
These types of passages have the unfortunate tendency to break the flow, especially when Chan works hard to establish pace and the suspense and unraveling of six separate crimes.
The Borrowed, Chan Ho-Kei, Jeremy Tiang (trans.) (Grove Atlantic, January 2017)
The Borrowed, Chan Ho-Kei, Jeremy Tiang (trans.) (Grove Atlantic, January 2017)
In an afterword, Chan explains what he set out to achieve, writing that “Hong Kong today is in just as strange a state as in 1967.” At least this reader sensed that feeling; on more than one occasion, I found myself muttering, plus ça change…
Chan’s afterword also explains how the interwoven novellas helped him solve the problem of writing a detective story that fell into both the classic and social detective genres. “The idea,” Chan explains, “was to create a book in which every part felt like a classic detective story but looking at the big picture, you’d see it was actually a social realist novel.”
“Hong Kong today is in just as strange a state as in 1967.”
Perhaps, then, there is even more reason to be distressed at the disregard with which Chan sometimes writes about women. In the 2013 billionaire murder case, there is an offhand remark about rape and in another case a suspect in an interrogation remarks that “women are like horses, you have to break them in before use.” The officers’ sole reaction is to “thank their lucky stars” that their female colleague was not present, or “she’d have started yelling at the Triad boss for being a chauvinist pig.”
Chan might argue that this is simply characterization, but while he has eschewed many of the cliches and sorry tropes that so many expat novelists use when writing Hong Kong noir, in opting to continue this convention, he detracts a little from his social realist message.
Hong Kong literature is usually meant as literature in English, only because so little of local Chinese fiction is translated into English. The Borrowed is therefore a rare chance for English-language readers to see Hong Kong from the perspective of the 92%.
Melanie Ho is a writer who has reviewed for publications in Hong Kong and Canada.
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Notes
1. ↩ This seems an error of translation
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April Smith's Home Sweet Home, Chan Ho-kei's The Borrowed and E. O. Chirovici's The Book of Mirrors, reviewed
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April Smith's Home Sweet Home, Chan Ho-kei's The Borrowed and E. O. Chirovici's The Book of Mirrors, reviewed
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MARGARET CANNON
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
APRIL 15, 2017
MARCH 24, 2017
Home Sweet Home
By April Smith
Knopf, 368 pages, $35.95
April Smith might not be a prolific author but, as readers of her Ana Grey series know well, she's a good one. Her latest, Home Sweet Home, isn't part of that series, but it is a fascinating examination of a time and place in American history. Based loosely on a true story, Smith takes us to South Dakota in the 1950s. Calvin and Betsy Kusek are New Yorkers in search of a new life who arrive in Rapid City, on the edge of the wild wild west. The family prospers, with each member finding a life in the hardscrabble world of ranching and local politics. Tensions rise thanks to Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt – Betsy's youthful foray into labour unions, as well as a brief membership in the Community Party, bring the family under suspicion. They launch a lawsuit to protect their reputation – which they win – but 40 years later, a vicious attack makes it apparent that old hatreds are still alive. A beautifully written and skillfully plotted thriller.
The Borrowed
By Chan Ho-kei, translated by Jeremy Tiang
House of Anansi, 490 pages, $19.95
A brilliant book from an award-winning Hong Kong writer who combines classic crime fiction with the history of modern Hong Kong, The Borrowed is actually a cleverly constructed series of novellas woven together. Kwan Chun-dok is a legendary Hong Kong police officer whom we first encounter in 2013, when he's on his deathbed. Although in a coma, he's still able to sift through clues and assist his beloved "Sonny" Lok of the Central Intelligence Bureau. (How he accomplishes this is not to be revealed here, but it works.) The novel's six episodes take us 50 years back in time. Old-timers such as me will recall the delightful Judge Dee series by Robert van Gulik, which was based on real cases from a seventh-century judge's records, known as the Dee Gong An, and which Chan Ho-kei has adapted, as well. This one is <
The Book Of Mirrors
By E. O. Chirovici
STORY CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT
Atria, 276 pages, $35
Books about writers always catch my eye and this first novel is a particularly good addition to the subgenre. It may help that E.O. Chirovici is Romanian German, living in England and writing about the United States. Or it could just be that he's extremely talented. Whatever it is, the premise – an unfinished novel by a dead author that may be a confession to a heinous crime – is great and Chirovici takes full advantage of it. Peter Katz is a literary agent who receives a manuscript that might have gone unnoticed if it weren't for the fact that it arrives just after Christmas, a dead zone for most books. The novel is set at Princeton in the late 1980s and the heart of the novel is the murder of a famous professor on Christmas Eve, 1987. The book appears to be leading to a confession, or a revelation, but it ends, unfinished. After learning the author is dead, Katz begins to assemble the clues. There are several twists and the end, in particular, is very good – do not, please, read this one in reverse. Chirovici is definitely a writer to watch.
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Book review: The Borrowed – Hong Kong crime novel’s six episodes tell a compelling story about city’s history
Simon Chan’s detective Kwan Chun-dok solves six murders against the backdrop of key events in Hong Kong’s recent history, from the 1967 riots to the handover and beyond
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 28 March, 2017, 1:33pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 28 March, 2017, 1:33pm
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The Borrowed
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by Chan Ho-Kei (translated by Jeremy Tiang)
Grove Atlantic
3 stars
Kwan Chun-dok is “the genius detective… the man who never forgets a place, and can identify a suspect just from the way he walks”. And even in a coma, in what might be his last day of life, Kwan, known as the “Eye of Heaven”, is going to solve one final murder.
Hong Kong crime writer Simon Chan Ho-kei’s The Borrowed spans Kwan’s 50-year career with the Hong Kong Police Force. Told in six distinct novellas in reverse chronological order, the book begins in 2013 with the murder of a Hong Kong billionaire, before moving back in time to significant years in the city’s history: the handover in 1997, the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, the 1977 conflict between the Hong Kong Police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and, finally – or is this really the start? – the 1967 leftist riots.
Hong Kong mystery writer Simon Chan is making crime pay - just about
Chan won the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award for his short stories, while his 2011 debut The Man Who Sold the World won the Soji Shimada Mystery Award. The Borrowed was published as 13.67 in Chinese in 2015; the English edition arrives via a translation by Jeremy Tiang.
His Kwan is a legend among Hong Kong police and his ability to interpret clues and delve into the psychology behind criminal masterminds lead him to achieve a “100 per cent success rate”. He is the classic cerebral detective – able to spot even the slightest non-clue and yet sensitive to the human emotions that drive crime in the first place.
Book review: Hong Kong Police Man by Chris Emmett
It’s not often that English readers have the opportunity to take a look at Hong Kong from a truly local point of view. Gone are the expats in Wan Chai typical of English-language Hong Kong noir and in their place are some wonderful details that perhaps would be missed by less local observers.
Simon Chan poses in High Street, Sai Ying Pun. Photo: Franke Tsang
One of the suspects in Kwan and assistant Sonny Lok’s final case, for example, compares the billionaire’s family dramas to “some crappy eight o’clock soap”; characters ride a minibus home; an apartment described as being about 400 square feet is said to be “plenty of space for a bachelor”. The plainness of language also works when describing Hong Kong’s underground. “It was as Ah Gut said: Yam Tak-ngok was very patient, for a Triad leader.”
There’s a richness to Chan’s descriptions of Hong Kong and it’s clear he is also looking at the social situation as as much as he is trying to write a crime novel. For example, he writes: “Mong Kok was dazzling as always. The multicoloured neon lights, glittering shop windows, throngs of pedestrians – as if the city knew no night. This bustling scene was a microcosm of Hong Kong, a city that relied on finance and consumption for survival, though these pillars were not as sturdy as people supposed.”
The cover of Chan’s 13.67, the Chinese-language original of which The Borrowed is a translation.
While each novella reads like a self-contained detective story, Chan is also trying to paint a bigger picture, with the story behind the story slowly revealed as the reader is taken back in time. He succeeds; with each subsequent novella, the reader understands how the past has influenced present decisions – for better or worse.
Occasionally, however, Chan has a tendency to explain his characters’ biographical details as though he was writing an executive summary. For example: “Sonny Lok had graduated from the Police Academy aged seventeen, and was now twice that age. He was fairly bright and enthusiastic, but his luck wasn’t good – and his misfortunes, coupled with his introverted personality, meant his personal file was filled with criticism. In the Hong Kong Police Force, promotion is earned not just by passing a test but, more importantly, by having a clean record. Hence Lok was overjoyed to receive his probationary inspectorship in 1999.”
From Wan Chai meth head to bestselling author and radio producer: Chris Thrall on his return from the abyss
Such passages have an unfortunate tendency to break the flow, especially when Chan works hard to establish pace and suspense in the unravelling of six separate crimes.
In an afterword, the author explains what he set out to achieve, writing that “Hong Kong today is in just as strange a state as in 1967.” At least this reader sensed that feeling; on more than one occasion, I found myself muttering plus ça change.
Chan’s afterword also explains how the interwoven novellas helped him solve the problem of writing a detective story that fell into both the classic and social detective genres. “The idea,” Chan writes, “was to create a book in which every part felt like a classic detective story but looking at the big picture, you’d see it was actually a social realist novel.”
Perhaps, then, there is even more reason to be distressed at the disregard for women Chan sometimes shows. In the case of the murdered billionaire, there is an offhand remark about rape and in another case a suspect in an interrogation remarks: “Women are like horses, you have to break them in before use.” The officers’ sole reaction is to “thank their lucky stars” that their female colleague was not present, or “she’d have started yelling at the triad boss for being a chauvinist pig”.
Chan might argue that this is simply characterisation, but while he has eschewed many of the clichés and sorry tropes that so many expat novelists use when writing Hong Kong noir, in opting to continue this convention he detracts a little from his social realist message.
Hong Kong literature is usually meant as literature in English, only because so little of local Chinese fiction is translated into English. The Borrowed is a rare chance for English-languages readers to see Hong Kong from the perspective of the 92 per cent.
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Crime Fiction LoverFeatures NewsFirst look: New Chinese crime fiction
FIRST LOOK: NEW CHINESE CRIME FICTION
August 19, 2016 Written by crimefictionlover Published in Features, News0Permalink
cover of The Borrowed by Chan Ho-KaiIt’s been an exciting summer for virtual travel through the medium of crime fiction. We’ve been all over the States, to France and Poland, and Japanese crime fiction is really starting to fizz. Next stop… Hong Kong. And here’s the airplane that’s going to transport us there – The Borrowed, written by Chan Ho-Kei and translated by Jeremy Tiang.
The cover has a wonderfully vertical arrangement to its design, just like the architecture of the city it is set in. The year is 2013 and a ageing detective is dying. For 50 years, Inspector Kwan has been solving crimes while the Hong Kong, China, and the wider world, changed around him. When his partner, Detective Lok, comes to his deathbed to ask for help, Kwan is tempted into one more case. But this isn’t just any case. As the detectives discover, it’s one that locks into five of Kwan’s previous investigations spanning his 50 on the force.
Publisher Head of Zeus is promising something epic here, with themes including <
The hardcover and Kindle versions will be available at £18.99 and £5.03 respectively. Enjoy our first look at this novel, and pre-order your copy below.
Chinese crime fiction, The Borrowed, Chan Ho-Kei
Chinese crime fiction, The Borrowed, Chan Ho-Kei
Chinese crime fiction, The Borrowed, Chan Ho-Kei
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Laser light beams on buildings in the financial district of Central. Photo: Reuters/Bobby Yip
Laser light beams on buildings in the financial district of Central. Photo: Reuters/Bobby Yip
CULTUREBOOKS
Borrowed time: Hong Kong author uses crime to paint big picture
Former software engineer Chan Ho-kei translated his Chinese-language police procedural into English, opening a door on a journey through city's key historic moments
By MELANIE HO MAY 13, 2017 2:00 PM (UTC+8)
26 0
When Chan Ho-kei decided to write about Hong Kong’s political and judicial issues, the author turned to fiction and a police procedural featuring a “genius” detective whose ability to make connections where others could not has led to a long and storied career.
“Writing a police procedural provided me a platform to discuss police and judicial issues, which is a major part of our society,” Chan says. “The police force of Hong Kong has had a very special role in Hong Kong history – it has had some highs and lows, and each of them has influenced our views and our values.”
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The Borrowed was published earlier this year and is the English translation of Chan’s 13.67 (with translation by Jeremy Tiang).
The original Chinese-language book was published three months before the start of the so-called Umbrella Movement – the pro-democracy protests that closed down the center of Hong Kong in 2014 – and the film rights have been bought by legendary director Wong Kar-wai (In The Mood For Love).
Spanning Kwan Chun-dok’s 50-year career with the Hong Kong Police Force, Chan has written The Borrowed as six distinct novellas, with each story set in a key moment in Hong Kong.
Author Chan Ho-kei has written The Borrowed as six distinct novellas, with each story set in a key moment in Hong Kong. Photo: HandoutAuthor Chan Ho-kei’s The Borrowed as covered a key moment in Hong Kong.
Told in reverse chronological order, the book begins with the 2013 murder of a Hong Kong billionaire before stepping back in time to the city’s handover to Chinese control in 1997, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the 1977 conflict between the Hong Kong Police and the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and, finally, the 1967 leftist riots in the city.
In the book’s afterword, Chan, who finished writing the original Chinese book in 2013, wrote that he had “no idea whether Hong Kong after 2013 will be able to recover as it did after 1967.”
Four years later, Chan is still uncertain about his city’s future.
“The future of Hong Kong is still in a mist,” Chan says. “In my opinion, [that] Hong Kong could recover in the ’70s and ’80s was due to two forces, Hong Kong citizens and the British government.
“Surely the British government stood firm during the leftist riots, but in the ’70s, Governor [Murray] MacLehose undertook various reforms, which were welcomed by citizens.
I had no intention to become a writer back then, as I thought it would be too late for a person to start
a new career. Well, never say never, I guess
– Chan Ho-kei
“Compared to the British government in the 70s, we are not sure now whether the Chinese government would act in a similar way [in allowing reforms], and we certainly don’t know what [Chief Executive-elect] Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s plan for the upcoming administration would be.
“Hong Kong is also a facing financial crisis now, as the housing bubble grows bigger and bigger. The social inequality and economic inequality we are dealing with now is [more] severe than the ones in the 70s. Hong Kong would recover only if we can eliminate these inequalities. However, even taking the most optimistic view, I don’t think it can be done in the near future.”
Chan didn’t originally set out to write about Hong Kong’s political, social and economic issues.
The Borrowed started as a short story featuring an “armchair detective” for a mystery writers’ competition in Taiwan.
But when this story exceeded the competition’s length limit, Chan began to think about how he could expand the story of Kwan and his loyal assistant Sonny Lok.
His solution was to write two additional novellas. However, as he continued to write, Chan realized that he wanted more than a pure detective story and that he wanted to tell “the story of a personality, a city and an era.”
The cover of the book, The Borrowed. The cover of the book, The Borrowed.
While each novella is self-contained, read as a whole, the book aims to “form a complete portrait of society.”
Born in Hong Kong, Chan grew up in the city in the 1980s. It was in primary school that he began reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Chinese.
It wasn’t until 2008 that Chan, a software engineer, turned to writing short stories. One of his stories ended up winning the Mystery Writers Taiwan Award. Chan picked up a few more awards along the way, published his debut novel The Man Who Sold the World in 2011 (which won the Soji Shimada Mystery Award) and transitioned into a full-time writer.
“While I was still working in the software industry in my 20s, I always joked about debuting as a writer in my 30s,” Chan says. “I had no intention to become a writer back then, as I thought it would be too late for a person to start a new career. Well, never say never, I guess.”
With The Borrowed now available to English-language readers, Chan is working on his next mystery novel. While his next book will also be set in Hong Kong, Chan sees the new work as a departure from his cerebral detective novel.
“It’s a story about netizens, hackers, cyber-bullying, inequalities and vengeance,” Chan says. “It’s not related to the police and quite different from The Borrowed. I think readers would be happier if I write another police procedural filled with gun-fighting, triads and murders, but I wanted to try something new.”
CULTURE BOOKS HONG KONG
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North Korean students say they are confident in their country. Photo: Yeung Lai-yan
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Hongkonger chats to North Korean students in rare meeting
Runner Yeung Lai-yan is among a few foreigners who were allowed to meet youngsters, a day after winning the women's Pyongyang Marathon race
By JEFF PAO MAY 12, 2017 6:48 PM (UTC+8)
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Hongkonger Yeung Lai-yan brought back two things from her first trip to North Korea last month – the women’s title of the Pyongyang Marathon and how proud local students are of being North Korean.
“The students we met in Pyongyang lack information about what is happening in the outside world,” Yeung told Asia Times in an interview. “They don’t dislike South Korea, but definitely have a bad perception of the US and capitalism.”
Yeung said North Korean students always gave a standard answer – “our country is the best” – when they discussed the merits of other nations.
The students were also very confident in their country’s military might and were not worried about fighting in a war, she said.
Yeung Lai Yan North Korea_a 12 May 2017 Hong Kong marathon runner Yeung Lai-yan talks to a group of top students in North Korea. Photo: Yeung Lai-yan
Yeung was among the few foreigners who were allowed by authorities to meet top students at a secondary school and a football training school in Pyongyang on April 10.
This was five days before North Korea leader Kim Jong-un hosted a military parade for the “Day of the Sun” Festival on April 15 to celebrate the 105th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder and former leader Kim Il-sung.
She said that although the secondary school students knew little about the outside world, they could speak fluent English.
“They are real students … one of them said he was 17, but he looked like he was a lot younger, as he was rather thin and short,” Yeung said.
“They are curious about visitors like us. I told them that I am working in an information technology company while running is a hobby. They asked me whether I have two jobs as being a runner is an official job assigned by their government.”
Yeung Lai Yan North Korea_f 13 May 2017 Local runners in North Korea line up. Photo: Yeung Lai-yan
When the students were asked what jobs their parents had, they replied “scientists.”
Teachers were proud of their students, who had participated the 57th International Mathematical Olympiad in Hong Kong last July, but they apparently did not know one of the participants had refused to return to North Korea after the game, Yeung said.
Last July, six North Korean students won two gold and four silver medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad in Hong Kong, but an 18-year-old sought political asylum at the South Korean consulate- general in the city. The student won a medal in the same competition in Thailand in 2015.
Chong Hiu Yeung North Korea_b 13 May 2017 Pyongyang Marathon is an annual event. Photo: Chong Hiu-yeung
In the running
The North Korean government has been allowing foreigners to join the Pyongyang Marathon since 2014, which involved a 10km, half marathon and marathon races.
About 2,000 people participated in the marathon on April 9 this year and half of them were foreigners.
All runners began and ended their journey at Kim Il-sung Stadium, where a crowd of 70,000 fill the stands. The course for the half and full marathon took runners along the Taedong River.
Chong Hiu Yeung North Korea_a 13 May 2017 A 70,000-strong crowd filled Kim Il-sung Stadium on April 9. Photo: Chong Hiu-yeung
Yeung, who started running marathons six years ago, said it was the first time she visited North Korea and achieving a personal best time of 3 hours 41 minutes for the 41km course made the trip even more special. She shaved 10 minutes off previous personal best.
Over the past year, she had been coached by an experienced runner Leung Shu-ming under a training regime organized by the Road Runner Athletic Club.
She said last month’s weather was ideal for marathon running in Pyongyang, but it was dusty along the Taedong River. She said she saw neither poverty nor beggars in the district where foreigners were allowed to go.
Yeung Lai Yan North Korea_b 13 May 2017 Yeung Lai-yan sets the pace on a sunny day in the race. Photo: Yeung Lai-yan
Knowing that water is a scarce resource in the country, Yeung said she saw a child collecting water from bottles left by runners.
As foreign visitors were required to stay with the local tour guides and could not walk freely, it was hard for outsiders to know what real living conditions were for locals, she said.
Local guides told her that locals had a monthly salary of only a few hundred yuan (US$50), as well as coupons to use in exchange for food and tools. Some people can get smartphones, but they are restricted to browsing within a national intranet.
New homes, which are allocated, are about 200 square meters in size, compared with the 120 square meters in the old ones, she said, citing the tour guides.
Yeung Lai Yan North Korea_c 13 May 2017 Yeung Lai-yan with her winner’s certificate. Photo: Yeung Lai-yan Yeung Lai Yan North Korea_d 13 May 2017 Hong Kong runners are among 1,000 foreigners to run in Pyongyang last month. Photo: Yeung Lai-yan Chong Hiu Yeung North Korea_c 13 May 2017 Children smile as the runners go past. Photo: Chong Hiu-yeung
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Review | The Borrowed, Chan Ho-Kei
Posted on 18 April 2017
30119105I’m a huge fan of classic detective fiction, so it’s no surprise that I absolutely adored Chan Ho-Kei’s novel/collection of interconnected short stories The Borrowed. Told in reverse chronological order, The Borrowed follows the career of Kwan Chun-dok, a legendary Hong Kong detective, and his protege, Inspector Lok. The stories all take place at significant moments in Hong Kong history (e.g. the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the Handover in 1997), and I wish I knew more about Hong Kong history so I would have appreciated the links more.
The stories are all also told in classic detective fiction style, with Kwan Chun-dok displaying brain power similar to Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. Similar to classic detective fiction, <
The stories are all also interconnected, with a character from one story reappearing in a later story, which would have taken place at an earlier time. I think I may have missed some of the reappearances (for example, a reappearance in the final story — or earliest, chronologically — seems to have major significance, but I had to flip back to find out what it could be), but I still enjoyed the stories overall.
I’m also a sucker for mentor/protege relationships, and I love how Kwan Chun-dok saw potential in Inspector Lok from early on, and developed him to take on his mantle. I also like how we saw Kwan Chun-dok as a young man, coming into his own abilities and making mistakes that would help shape the genius he’d become.
I admit I thought the reverse chronological approach to be nothing more than a clever gimmick at first, and I wasn’t much of a fan, but I found that I enjoyed getting to know Kwan Chun-dok in reverse order. We are so often used to the story of a brilliant young man who develops his own talents and becomes legendary that it’s an interesting effect to meet him first at the apex of his brilliance and then slowly get to know the man behind the legend, <
Hong Kong as well becomes <> in these stories, as Chan Ho-Kei’s writing brings the city to life on the page. This book makes me want to read more Hong Kong police procedurals, or possibly even more of Inpector Lok’s adventures beyond his career with Kwan Chun-dok.
The Borrowed is such a fun book to read, and I highly recommend it for any fan of classic mysteries and police procedurals.
+
Thank you to House of Anansi for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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Book Review: The Borrowed by Chan Ho-keiasianave June 5, 2017 Book Review: The Borrowed by Chan Ho-kei2017-06-05T15:59:37+00:00 Entertainment, This Issue
The Borrowed by Chan Ho-kei
Book Review by Amy Ng
The Borrowed has all the action of a detective tale like Sherlock Holmes, but is set in Hong Kong. The novel keeps the suspense high while maintaining the nuances and customs of the setting.
Freshly translated into English in January 2017, Chan Ho-Kei’s fast-paced crime tale will keep readers on the edge the whole way through. The Borrowed follows senior inspector Kwan Chun-dok, nicknamed “The Eye of Heaven,” from learning to master his detective skills in the 1960s, to the changes he experiences in the Hong Kong police force in 2013.
The novel begins in the modern day, with a wealthy business man found murdered in his own home. Inspector ‘Sonny’ Lok—legendary Kwan Chun-dok’s disciple—leads the investigation. We find that the famous inspector is on his deathbed. Even in his poor condition, “The Eye of Heaven” lives up to his name.
The Borrower is split up into several stories presented in reverse chronologic order. Similar to cracking a criminal case, the reader learns more and more about the mysterious inspector by discovering one snippet of detail at a time. Kwan Chun-dok faces murders, kidnapping, and botched special operations. The quick witted inspector, who seems to always be a few steps ahead of everyone, takes the reader through five decades of Hong Kong’s history.
<
The Borrowed carefully constructs each scene in the novel, <
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