5 Questions for Li Zi Shu

Abstract

5 Questions for Li Zi Shu Michelle Johnson (bio) and Li Zi Shu (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution PHOTO COURTESY OF LI ZI SHU Li Zi Shu is the author of the Taiwanese best-seller The Age of Goodbyes, now available in English translation by YZ Chin (Feminist Press, 2022). Q YZ Chin's translation of The Age of Goodbyes is your first book available in English and the first time a novel by a Malaysian woman writer working in Chinese will appear in English. What do you make of these milestones? A As a matter of fact, there are very few novels you could find in Malaysian Chinese literature. The current environment has never been supportive. Not only that Chinese, as a language commonly used for generations in Malaysia, is not officially recognized, but our literature also has been marginalized in the Chinese-speaking world. For decades, Malaysian writers who work in Chinese have been struggling to survive on a small readership, low pay, and very limited space for publication. To work on novels is simply unrealistic. It is also true that the number of women writers was relatively small in the past, so it is not surprising that I could be the first Malaysian woman writer—after twenty-five years of my career—who gets her Chinese novel translated and published in English. However, I must admit that I had never thought of expanding my readership beyond the Chinese-speaking world—not even to Malay readers, until YZ Chin, the translator of The Age of Goodbyes, brought up the suggestion. I and my peers in Malaysia who write in a marginalized language have worked so hard trying to be seen and recognized. I am glad and excited that my work could be the first step we take to go out into a wider literary world. Hopefully, it will draw the attention of more readers to Malaysian Chinese literature. Q You are known for daring experimentation with form. For instance, The Age of Goodbyes begins on page 513. Are there other writers who have inspired you in this regard, or are you working against what you've read? A I was considerably young at the time I wrote The Age of Goodbyes, and [End Page 34] absolutely a beginner as a novelist. Like most young people, I was fond of exploring, easily fascinated by forms and techniques, and courageous enough to play with all kinds of perceptible, even tangible devices, such as formal and linguistic methods, in order to explore the possibilities of novel writing. Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino were my favorite writers; they still are. It was almost impossible for me to resist the charms of their works and not be influenced by their ideas of construction of human society and the world. In fact, it was only after I finished The Age of Goodbyes and had learned from the experience that I began to gradually develop my own ideas of form. From the first novel to the second (Worldly Land), which came out two years ago, I had been pursuing—at a higher level, I believe—a new approach to fiction writing that is less formal and technical. Not that I care less about form now, I just think that I should be capable of integrating form into narrative, instead of using form to shape a novel and pouring narrative into it. Q Would you tell us a little about The Age of Goodbyes? A The novel was written in my late thirties. I was so determined to write a novel at that time. For many years before I had written only short stories, or flash stories, as they were easier to get published, and it was a quicker way for me to earn a living. Right before I turned forty, I decided to write a novel, setting it as a career challenge to explore more possibilities of fiction writing. I chose to tackle a subject I was most familiar with, which was the changes of the Chinese community in Malaysia. The story begins on May 13, 1969, the day an incident of ethnic conflict took place, namely the 513 incident (May...