Tse, Dorothy
Entry updated 23 March 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1977- ) Hong Kong author, active from the turn of the century; her first collection, So Black [original Chinese title not traced] (coll 2005). Yīng tóu māo yŭ yīn yuè xiāng nǖ hái ["The Eagle-Headed Cat and the Music Box Girl"] (2020; trans Natascha Bruce as Owlish 2023) is set in a phantasmagoric City (clearly Hong Kong under surreal historical stress) where an academic (also profoundly stressed) falls in love with a mechanical doll or Automaton who comes hallucinatingly to Android life as he falls in love with her. Eventually, under duress, he abandons this dream and becomes a fixture in the new city under the sway of a deeply compromising totalitarian regime. City Like Water ([for Chinese original see checklist below] 2021; trans Natascha Bruce 2026), in a manner evocative of China Miéville's The City and the City (2009), treats citizens' Perception of an unnamed Hong Kong as substantially double: the city before a devastating diminution of a lived-in community, and the city after it has been regulated. It seems to be a criminal act to see the city when it was alive. [JC]
Dorothy Tse Hiu-hung
born British Hong Kong [now China]: 1977
works (selected)
- Yīng tóu māo yŭ yīn yuè xiāng nǖ hái ["The Eagle-Headed Cat and the Music Box Girl"] (Hong Kong: Aquarius, 2020) [binding unknown/]
- Owlish (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2023) [trans by Natascha Bruce of the above: pb/Sam Chung]
- The Ghost with No Umbrella (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Literature, 2021) [coll: Chinese title not traced: title given is English translation: City Like Water: binding unknown/]
- City Like Water (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2026) [trans by Natascha Bruce of stories revised into one narrative from above coll: original title not traced: pb/nonpictorial]
collections and stories
- Snow and Shadow (Hong Kong: East Slope Publishing, 2014) [coll: stories from various Chinese collections and other sources: trans by Nicky Harman] [binding unknown/]
links
previous versions of this entry