[Yale-readings] WRITERS LIVE SAT. FEB 3RD Tinling Choong reads from FireWife

[Nancy Kuhl]

>
>Please join us!
>
>Saturday, February 3rd at 3:00pm
>Tinling Choong reads from Firewife
>Writers Live!
>NHFPL 133 Elm Street
>New Haven, CT 06511                        contact: 
><mailto:john.jessen at nhfpl.org>john.jessen at nhfpl.org        203-946-7001
>
>The New Haven Free Public Library kicks off their Writers Live series this 
>spring with a reading by Tinling Choong from her book FireWife.
>
>Choong’s first novel draws on the Chinese creation myth to tell the 
>fictional story of a photographer, Nin, who leaves her corporate job in 
>California to photograph women throughout the world. Her journey turns 
>into a search for the truth about women: the women of fire and the women 
>of water. In Taipei, she meets Zimi, water, who leases her forehead as 
>advertising space and wants to donate her eggs to an infertile friend. In 
>Bangkok, she photographs Ut, fire, a fourteen-year-old girl forced into 
>prostitution. In Tokyo, her subject nicknamed Table, water, bares her body 
>so that sushi may be served upon her daily to groups of salivating men. 
>Each of their lives echoes a stage in Nin's journey to discover her true 
>fire self.
>
>Following is the early praise:
>
>Robert Stone: ''Tinling Choong’s extraordinary work, FireWife, combines 
>psychological depth with mythologically inclined reference points, giving 
>it a remarkable freshness and singularity. FireWife represents the debut 
>of an important artist.''
>
>
>Harold Bloom: “FireWife, Tinling Choong’s first book, is both an absorbing 
>short novel and a brilliant erotic phantasmagoria, as poignantly poetic as 
>it is compelling narrative. This is a strong augmentation of 
>American-Asian literature."
>
>
>Booklist: Choong’s first novel draws on the ancient Chinese mythology of 
>struggle between the archetypal forces of fire and water, with outcomes 
>affecting each protagonist so that the extreme passion of fire-love shapes 
>the life of one and deeply flowing water-love defines that of another. The 
>travels of photographer Nin, who suffers long-standing guilt over her 
>sister’s drowning, awakens to her self-awareness. She leaves her husband 
>and California corporate life, eventually realizing that she is “four 
>parts fire having to live the life of four parts water” and that her 
>“FireWife journey” means living as she truly is. Her global quest for 
>images of women’s stories becomes personal as she encounters Zimi, who 
>lives in Taipei by leasing her forehead for advertisements promoting 
>“Tampax Tampons 2 for 1,” and the girl known as table, who works naked as 
>a table for sushi dining. While serving lascivious Tokyo businessmen, 
>table escapes reality by imagining herself studying fashion design in New 
>York. Such marginalized lives, depicted in Choong’s sparely elegant, 
>flowing prose, become icons of society’s disposal of women. ­Whitney Scott
>
>
>Born and raised in Malaysia, Tinling Choong graduated from Wellesley 
>College, worked for several years, and is presently working toward a Ph.D. 
>in Chinese Literature at Yale. In 1997she was awarded the generous 
>Wellesley College Stevens Traveling Fellowship to travel to Asia to 
>further develop FireWife. FireWife is her first book. Fuent in 
>Mandarin-Chinese and the Teohchew and Hokkien dialects.  She now lives in 
>Vermont with her husband and baby daughter.
>
>
>For a complete list of Writers Live! events scheduled thus far for Spring 
>2007 visit: www.cityofnewhaven.com/library
>

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