Birds of Passage, an autobiographical novel, was published by Hung Fan Books.

About Xi Xi’s Birds of Passage

In May 1981, Xi Xi’s novel Birds of Passage was serialized in Hong Kong Express Daily. The novel is written from the point of view of an elder sister, very much like Xi Xi. The narrative was continued from the point of view of her younger sister in the book Weaving Nests, published in 2018.

 

Excerpt from Birds of Passage

The main gate is closed, and so is the door to my mother’s room. She’s also gone South, and everything here is stiller than before. I am the only one in the front house––how to pass the long day, other than doing homework? I don’t feel like drawing doll clothes or reading storybooks. Sitting in the house, I don’t even want to go out for a bowl of plain noodles. The windows of my mother’s room are open to circulate the air. One day, as I sat writing at my desk, I saw a bird fly inside the house from a window by the street. It circled around the room before it flew out the window by the fence. I’m not sure what kind of bird it was, or whether it was a swallow, as I didn’t see its tail clearly. Nevertheless, the bird was full of life. Was it from the South or the North? It was probably just passing by, because the birds that left  the chimney on the roof of my house are gone forever.

 

 

(Translations on this page are by Chen Yanyi and Jennifer Feeley)

 

If you have read Birds of Passage, please leave us a message below!

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The book cover of Hand Scroll (2016).

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    • The “musical” scene on ‘My City’

      When reading Xi Xi's "My City", I came across at chapter nine a passage on death and funeral, which is rarely touched on by critics, and the "musical" scene in the passage left a...

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    • Yanyi’s reflections on ‘My City’

      While I was impressed by “citizenship only” and the funeral train in my first reading of the book, My City’s being chosen as the book for 2020 by “One City One Book” makes it...

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    • Bidisha Banerjee comments on ‘My City’

      What I enjoyed most about reading Xi Xi’s My City, is the quaint charm with which she imbues everything she delineates, even the most mundane things like moving house, wrapping things in plastic, or...

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    • Lucinda News comments on ‘My City’

      “Xi Xi’s writing is both child-like and highly challenging. In My City, you are shown Hong Kong as if refracted through a prism. The city is there, but you never see it head on....

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    • Hawk Chang comments on ‘My City’

      "In my reading of Xi Xi's works, I am particularly impressed with her double identity as a narrator. On the one hand, we perceive an objective speaker who is skillfully detached from the story....

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