Fiction

My Chinese Grandmother

Lars Saabye Christensen

After the first Opium War in 1842, China ceded Hong Kong to the British Empire; after further conflicts and uprisings, the two parties entered into a contract in 1898 whereby the British would lease Hong Kong for 99 years. It is to this British enclave, a trade and seafaring hub, and an international melting pot where East meets West, that Jørgen Christensen travels in 1906. He is on his way to take up a post with Svitzer’s Bjergnings Enterprise. The forward-thinking Copenhagen-based salvage company has set up an office in Hong Kong. A couple of months later, Hulda joins him. Jørgen and Hulda Christensen are Lars Saabye Christensen’s paternal grandfather and grandmother. When his father is on his deathbed, Lars Saabye Christensen asks him about China, and about his grandfather and grandmother’s years in the East. Who were these people he is descended from? What persuaded a young woman from Copenhagen to set out on a long and arduous sea voyage alone? How was their life among the colonials and traders? Lars Saabye Christensen opens up a Chinese box, whose contents are not always what we expect them to be. He has gone through letters and photographs in the possession of his family as well as official documents to painstakingly bring the story to light. In the process, he discovers that the author of fiction cannot help him: in this case, neither imagination nor guesswork can fill in the gaps in the story; he cannot invoke elements that are not already documented in the annals of history. But precisely by remaining true to the documented material, Lars Saabye Christensen sketches a fascinating picture of a time, a family, a couple and an individual, and thereby, also, a compelling picture of our own time – and perhaps also of us and the author himself? «My Chinese Grandmother is a lovely family portrait, as well as a key to the literary universe of Lars Saabye Chistensen. This book is a gem!»VG, six/six stars «Never before has the author written such a penetrating text about his own life, his own family, his own artistry.»STAVANGER AFTENVLAD, six/six stars «Make me understood, asks Saabye Christensen. I am afraid of not being understood, he answers, and he can be completely at ease: he is so definitely understood. Through this concise, precise journey where the grandmother travels from Denmark to China and back to Denmark again via France, and where we gain insight into both her, the rest of the family and Saabye Christensen himself, is both exciting, interesting and at the same time great literature. Truly great literature.»NETTAVISEN, six/six stars «My Chinese Grandmother is a kind of hybrid, a memoir, a family history, a biography and a reflection on the relationship between poetry and reality. But first and foremost, it is a declaration of love to a grandmother he tries to conjure up from the veil of oblivion. It is a heartfelt, beautiful book.»DAGBLADET, five/six stars «With his family history as a compass, Saabye Christensen sets sail and travels east from his safe haven in [Oslo's] western suburbs. He's going far east this time. He's going to find himself on the outer edges of fiction. The result is rich and satisfying.»NRK «The strongest part of the book is the raw descriptions from his father at his deathbed. The most beautiful part is the many questioning investigations in search of the grandparents's history and soul. In both parts he writes with a mix of direct, vulnerable objectivity and a recognisable sense of baroque metaphors.»AFTENPOSTEN «There is much to enjoy in this book. It is marked by exuberance and the joy of writing, but also by sadness over the brutal conditions of life. A small book with great content.»DAGSAVISEN «This little book also proves that Lars Saabye Christensen is an extraordinarily professional storyteller. He has full control of his craft, and of what makes the reader's brain tickle, what makes us read books – can we call it an inner glee?»DN «… the work of a master.»WEEKENDAVISEN (DK «Lars Saabye Christensen’s new book is one you can grow into and keep quoting from, about forgetting, remembering and the passage of time. He himself is perhaps Norway’s most generous and beloved author.»INFORMATION (DK)