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A Novel
by Wiz Wharton
Book Reviewed by:Set between the last years of the "Chinese Windrush" in 1966 and Hong Kong's Handover to China in 1997, a mysterious inheritance sees a young woman from London uncovering buried secrets in her late mother's homeland in this captivating, wry debut about family, identity, and the price of belonging.
Hong Kong, 1966. Sook-Yin is exiled from Kowloon to London with orders to restore honor to her family. But as she trains to become a nurse in cold and wet England, Sook-Yin realizes that, like so many transplants, she must carve out a destiny of her own to survive.
Thirty years later in London, having lost her mother as a small child, biracial misfit Lily can only remember what Maya, her preternaturally perfect older sister, has told her about Sook-Yin. Unexpectedly named in the will of a powerful Chinese stranger, Lily embarks on a secret pilgrimage across the world to discover the lost side of her identity and claim the reward. But just as change is coming to Hong Kong, so Lily learns Maya's secrecy about their past has deep roots, and that good fortune comes at a price.
Heartfelt, wry and achingly real, Ghost Girl, Banana marks the stunning debut of a writer-to-watch.
While there is a mystery element involving the provenance of the inheritance, and dramatic tension heightened by betrayals, tragedy and threats of violence, Ghost Girl, Banana shines in the quieter moments of familial connection across decades and the fissure of life and death. It succeeds on the strengths of its characters. Sook-Yin is clever, ambitious, in some ways (the best ways) ferocious. Lily is funny, caustic to hide her vulnerability, loyal, relatably searching for meaning through a story she has been excluded from...continued
Full Review
(730 words)
(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
Ghost Girl, Banana takes place partly in Hong Kong in the summer of 1997, a setting intentionally chosen by the author for symbolic reasons, representing the inner conflict of the main character who is of Hong Kong descent but grew up in the UK, raised by her English father. This was the summer Hong Kong was "returned" to the rule of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from the British, who held the territory as a colony for 156 years.
British rule of Hong Kong began in 1842 after the First Opium War (one of a series of trade-related conflicts between Britain and China); Hong Kong Island was given to the British in a peace treaty signed by Queen Victoria and the Daoguang Emperor of China. In a treaty ending the Second Opium War in 1860,...
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A story of family, love, redemption and belonging, told with such heart and empathy. Wiz Wharton is a phenomenal talent, original, fresh, and with a pinpoint clarity to her prose that cuts right to the bone. She has created such a special book, with a story that needs to be told. Essential and utterly unforgettable.
