Hong Kong writer Xi Xi, whose whimsical tales turned a defining portrait of a metropolis transitioning away from British rule, died on Sunday, in keeping with a writer she co-founded. She was 85.
One of essentially the most beloved names in Sinophone literature, she revealed greater than 30 books of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and screenplays in a profession spanning six many years.
She was usually credited with placing Hong Kong on the map within the literary world.
Xi Xi died of coronary heart failure at a Hong Kong hospital on Sunday morning surrounded by household and mates, writer Plain Leaves Workshop mentioned in a press release on Facebook.
It mentioned her life was “wonderful, happy, as well as beneficial and meaningful”.
Her imaginative writing usually gave mundane occasions a fairytale twist and was an invite to “re-examine the world with fresh eyes and childlike curiosity”, mentioned Jennifer Feeley, who translated a few of her works.
After China and Britain signed an settlement in 1984 on the switch of Hong Kong’s sovereignty, she famously described her house as a “floating city” — reflecting the anxieties of residents dealing with a historic shift.
In 2019 she turned the primary Hong Kong author to win the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, hosted by the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for US-China Issues.
Hong Kong’s tradition minister Kevin Yeung mourned her loss and mentioned Xi Xi “devoted her whole life to the creation of literary works, to the teaching of younger generations, as well as cultivating talent”.
Born Cheung Yin in Shanghai in 1937, she adopted the pen identify Xi Xi and moved to colonial Hong Kong along with her household in 1950.
She revealed her breakthrough novel “My City” in 1975 depicting city life “from the vantage point of ordinary residents, using defamiliarisation and deceptively plain language”, mentioned Feeley.
Another acclaimed work, “Mourning a Breast”, was a semi-autobiographical account of her struggle with breast most cancers within the late Nineteen Eighties, a topic not often lined in Chinese-language literature as much as that time.
In a 2020 interview, Xi Xi mentioned she was shocked by the sight of younger folks bloodied within the large and infrequently violent democracy protests that had swept Hong Kong within the previous months.
“Young people don’t owe us anything. Instead, it is us who owe them an ideal society,” she informed an area newspaper.
