Siu Lok-yan Traces Kundera’s Mark on Debut Collection
SingTao · 1 SOURCES1 day ago2 MIN
Summary
Hong Kong writer Siu Lok-yan, who writes under the pen name “Siu” or “Burning,” has spoken about the literary influences behind her first short-story collection, Sneaking Softly, in RTHK’s cultural programme Open Book. Her comments link the 19-story volume to a long-running dialogue with writers including Taiwanese author Yuan Che-sheng and Czech novelist Milan Kundera
Key Points
- Sneaking Softly is Siu Lok-yan’s debut short-story collection, bringing together 19 stories whose characters are portrayed as eccentric, obsessive, detached and lonely
- In the story “Deep Water,” the character Ying suppresses herself to please others, before an alcohol-fuelled breakdown ends with torn clothes, shouting and a quiet line from diving coach Wo
- Siu said writers she encountered at university continued to shape her thinking, including Yuan Che-sheng, the subject of her dissertation, especially through the hide-and-seek image in The Lonely Game
- She described Milan Kundera as another major influence, recalling how The Art of the Novel led her to note that fiction explores the human condition
- Siu also praised Kundera’s metaphors in The Unbearable Lightness of Being and said she remembers his view that everyone in a novel has the right to be understood
Why It Matters
For Hong Kong readers, Siu’s remarks place a new local fiction debut within a wider Chinese-language and European literary conversation, showing how contemporary writing here is shaped by reading across borders. Her emphasis on loneliness, interpretation and the right to be understood also offers a clear entry point for readers approaching a formally varied collection that ends with photographs and poetic fragments about love