The Heartsick Diaspora, and other stories

Set in different cities around the world — Hong Kong, Miami, New York, London, Ipoh and Singapore — Elaine Chiew's award-winning stories travel into the heart of the Singaporean-Malaysian diaspora, and ask what it means to be 'Chinese' or 'Asian' within the context of dual, or hyphenated, identities.

In the title story (runner-up in the 2018 UK Bridport Prize) four Asian writers are flummoxed by the sexual shenanigans that start when a handsome young Asian writer joins their support group. In other stories, three Singaporean daughters welcome their mother on a first visit to London and quarrel over steamboat, a Chinese woman raps about being a Tiger Mother, an elderly Chinese woman finds that it isn't race that estranges, but the inability to tell the truth, and an ethnic writer takes on Eastern mythology in a metaphoric quest to understand the anxiety of Western literary influence.

'Innovative in format and original in content, The Heartsick Diaspora is clever, multilayered, challenging and political. It's also full of verve and wit.' — Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane,  Man Booker Prize short-listed

'Elaine Chiew's witty stories in The Heartsick Diaspora offer us a rich palette of feelings and experiences that often converge: humour, melancholy, rage, and tenderness. Issues of race, ethnicity, and cultural identities are embedded in the everyday — in the kitchen, on the bus, or at school — as characters navigate between connection and isolation, visibility and invisibility, familiarity and distance.' — Intan Paramaditha, author of Apple and Knife

'In The Heartsick Diaspora, Elaine Chiew allows us to visit a breadth of experiences among Chinese migrant communities, both past and present. The range of the emotional worlds of the characters represented in the book is depicted in fragments, echoing the disjointed, often repressed manner in which many of the immigrant families communicate with one another. The stories do an outstanding job of capturing an atmosphere that is recognisable, but presented in fresh tales to engage the mind and heart of the reader, even as they entertain. It is a brilliant first collection by Chiew, marking her as a writer to be watched.' — Shelly Bryant

'Elaine Chiew's short stories are hugely incisive. Here is a satisfying mix of poignancy and humour, light and dark — an unforgettable journey into the hearts and minds of the displaced. Chiew brings original and multiple award-winning skills to great effect in these sparklingly intelligent explorations of identity and displacement. The added charge in Chiew's work comes from her impressive range — her clever, nuanced and varied stories are perfectly balanced.' — Vanessa Gebbie

'The Heartsick Diaspora is an unflinching examination of the hybrid and hyphenated lives of global nomads, shining a bright light on Singaporean-Chinese voices, but also the larger Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese diaspora. It is philosophical and poetic in turns, and stories like Face and The Heartsick Diaspora and Mapping Three Lives are absolutely stunning. Memorably populated with characters who linger in the mind long after the last story ends, this book is a truly impressive debut, full of humour and heart.' — Dipika Mukherjee

'A spectacular read! What a handsome showcase of the consummate storyteller Elaine Chiew. Hers is a winning voice, working in pathos with great élan. We become witness to such a rich understanding of human emotion and desire. Elaine lets scene and character speak for themselves, with such self-assured perspicacity.' — Desmond Kon Zhicheng-mingde

'The characters in Elaine Chiew's wonderful and vibrant collection are drawn with so much insight, humor, and compassion. It is an original and beautiful collection.' — Karen E. Bender

'The Heartsick Diaspora is thoughtful, complex, emotionally resonant, both aware of the need to establish its own truth and of the danger that need involves... The stories are as deeply felt as they are, on occasion, playful; there's a kind of impertinence of tone, a creative intelligence that lets Chiew get up skin-close and yet maintain a distance that allows her, and us, to see the larger picture.' — Charles Lambert