The Jade Peony

by Wayson Choy

tagged: literary

Description

Chinatown, Vancouver, in the late 1930s and ï¿½40s provides the setting for this poignant first novel, told through the vivid and intense reminiscences of the three younger children of an immigrant family. They each experience a very different childhood, depending on age and sex, as they encounter the complexities of birth and death, love and hate, kinship and otherness. Mingling with the realities of Canada and the horror of war are the magic, ghosts, paper uncles and family secrets of Poh-Poh, or Grandmother, who is the heart and pillar of the family.

Wayson Choy's Chinatown is a community of unforgettable individuals who are neither this nor that, neither entirely Canadian nor Chinese. But with each other's help, they survive hardship and heartbreak with grit and humour.

The Jade Peony was a 2010 Canada Reads Selection.

About the Author

Wayson Choy

Awards

, Project Bookmark Canada Selection

Editorial Review

"The Jade Peony is one of the finest works of fiction yet to break the silence that surrounds so many of the country's immigrant communities"

— Macleans

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Annotations

West Coast fictional history read

by [vwruleschick]

It is a story told from three different perspectives that are all children of a Chinese immigrant family in Vancouver BC before and during WWII and how they are coping with a new culture, language and they fit in whilst their traditional Grandma (Poh Poh) is trying to ensure her grandchildren honour their heritage and culture and not be assimilated to their new country. A short read.