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Flèche Main

Flèche Main

Paperback by Chan, Mary Jean

Flèche

£10.99

ISBN:
9780571348046
Publication Date:
4 Jul 2019
Edition/language:
Main / English
Publisher:
Faber & Faber
Pages:
88 pages
Format:
Paperback
For delivery:
Estimated despatch 31 Oct - 1 Nov 2024
Flèche

Description

WINNER OF THE COSTA POETRY AWARD POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION Flèche (the French word for 'arrow') is an offensive technique commonly used in fencing, a sport of Mary Jean Chan's young adult years, when they competed locally and internationally for their home city, Hong Kong. This cross-linguistic pun presents the queer, non-white body as both vulnerable ('flesh') and weaponised ('flèche'), and evokes the difficulties of reconciling one's need for safety alongside the desire to shed one's protective armour in order to fully embrace the world. Central to the collection is the figure of the poet's mother, whose fragmented memories of political turmoil in twentieth-century China are sensitively threaded through the book in an eight-part poetic sequence, combined with recollections from Chan's childhood. As complex themes of multilingualism, queerness, psychoanalysis and cultural history emerge, so too does a richly imagined personal, maternal and national biography. The result is a series of poems that feel urgent and true, dazzling and devastating by turns.

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