The Earnest Mask

In Other Cities, Other Lives, travelogues are populated with swindlers and enterprising tour guides, where nothing is as it seems. Closer to home, stories capture husbands, wives and children struggling with upheaval in the family.

Told in the elegant, spare style of a Chinese scholar, Chew’s micro-fiction reflects the voice of his generation, living through a time of immense change in the region. This is the first collection of his writing to be translated into English.