Flying Carpet

From the pen of one of Hong Kong’s leading writers, Xi Xi (1938– ), Flying Carpet mirrors the past and present of Fertillia, an island city situated on the south-eastern coast of the huge country of Dragonland. Fertillia is of course Hong Kong, and the novel is part history and part imagination, a rich tapestry of the local material culture and a vivid portrayal of sensitive Chinese minds, a saga of the Fa family who has lived through Fertillia’s development from a small village to a cosmopolitan metropolis. On top of the personal drama involving three generations of people, the author casts her narrative net over many walks of life in the city and suggests the uniqueness of Fertillia’s existence within a cosmic order of rare elegance and harmony.

Diana Yue, whose translation work spans poetry to legal texts, is at her best here in rendering this richly woven cross-cultural tale. The book brims with the author’s creativity and intellectual insight and will make good reading for all those who are familiar with the spirit and minutiae of life in Hong Kong and those who take Hong Kong seriously as a subject for historical, cultural and literary research.

Diana Yue is currently teaching translation in the Department of Chinese of the University of Hong Kong.