Fuelled by Jenny Zhang's singular voice and sly humour, Sour Heart introduces a bright new force in literary fiction. From the young woman coming to terms with her grandmother's role in the Cultural Revolution, to the daughter struggling to understand where her family ends and she begins, to the girl discovering the power of her body to inspire and destroy, these vibrant, raw and powerful stories illuminate the complex and messy inner lives of girls struggling to define themselves. Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang A debut story collection that plunges readers into the hearts and inner lives of a group of adolescent girls, from poet and National Magazine Award nominee Jenny Zhang. Centred on a community of immigrants who have traded their endangered lives as artists in China and Taiwan for the constant struggle of life on the poverty line in 1990s New York City, the stories that make up Sour Heart examine the many ways that family and history can weigh us down, but also lift us up. I was stunned, moved and – quite frankly – a little jealous' Lena Dunham 'Bold, startling brilliance' Miranda July These seven startling stories of family, femininity, sexuality and otherness will plunge you into the tender and chaotic hearts of narrators you won't easily forget. So the recounting is supposed to be blurry and inaccurate.'I will never forget the first time I read Jenny Zhang.
In the end, those stories are the first-person retrospectives of now-adult women looking back at a time in their childhood when they heard these stories of a country they either never knew or no longer remembered. Did you find it difficult to tell other people’s stories? You’ve actually incorporated those stories into your writing, especially when you touch on heavy topics like the Cultural Revolution. And I think that’s the case with a lot of stories our parents tell us, right? We’re not sure if they’re totally true, but you take their word for it. Gavin Huang: Oh yeah, my mother said she used to make something like that, too, but I always doubted whether it was really a thing. It was a snack my babysitter used to make in the States. It was a poached egg in boiled water, but there was also sugar. Jenny Zhang: Really? I think I’ve had something like this before. Below are edited excerpts from our conversation.ĭolly Li: So what would you like to drink? They have raw egg in boiled water. We caught up with Zhang at a small Hong Kong cafe, where we talked about writing, fame, and growing up Chinese-American.
The book was picked up by Lena Dunham’s imprint, Lenny, as its inaugural publication and quickly earned praise for its rawness. Most of the protagonists are young Chinese-American women.
It’s a body of work characterized by unrelentingly grotesque scenes, devastatingly beautiful prose, and lots of scatological humor.
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