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But the Girl
Akce
Irreverent, witty and wise, But the Girl is a coming-of-age story about not wanting to leave your family behind
Having been Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina and Esther Greenwood all my life, my writing was an opportunity for the reader to have to be me.
Girl was born on the very day her parents and grandmother immigrated from Malaysia to Australia. The story goes that her mother held on tight to her pelvic muscles in an effort to gift her the privilege of an Australian passport. But it's hard to be the embodiment of all your family's hopes and dreams, especially in a country that's hostile to your very existence.
When Girl receives a scholarship to travel to the UK, she is finally free for the first time. In London and then Scotland she is meant to be working on a PhD on Sylvia Plath and writing a postcolonial novel. But Girl can't stop thinking about her upbringing and the stories of the people who raised her. How can she reconcile their expectations with her reality? Did Sylvia Plath have this problem? What even is a 'postcolonial novel'? And what if the story of becoming yourself is not about carving out a new identity, but learning to understand the people who made you who you are?
Review
But the Girl is a vivid novel of consciousness with a delightful sense of play. Jessica Zhan Mei Yu writes with striking originality that combines the irreverent and the philosophical about the ambiguities and ambivalences of contemporary life. A wonderful new novel for a metamodern world -- Brandon Taylor, author of THE LATE AMERICANS
Impressive… Yu is the writer Girl wishes to be – remaking, in her own image, the young female protagonist, the Künstlerroman, the postcolonial novel, and the art of writing itself ― Guardian
Thrilling... But the Girl is a debut that heralds a skilled and singular new talent ― List
A unique and meaningful novel: refreshingly unsentimental, written with a directness that is both self-effacing and wry. The voice sometimes recalls Lucia Berlin, JD Salinger or Lorrie Moore but it's entirely her own -- Sharlene Teo, author of PONTI
Sharp, flecked with glints of bone-dry humour... It's compellingly poignant. But The Girl is a debut that heralds a skilled and singular new talent ― List
A delicate investigation into intergenerational immigrant subjectivities... Written in a flowing, internal narration that occasionally moves into moments of not-quite-real, observations of the minutiae of everyday microaggressions build up to depict the internal landscapes that minorities must uncomfortably navigate ― Skinny
About the Author
Jessica Zhan Mei Yu is a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. Her writing has been published in Best Australian Poems, Overland, Yen, Sydney Morning Herald, White Review and others. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. But the Girl is her first novel.
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