Chih-Ying Lay was born in Taipei, Taiwan. He moved to Montreal in 2008 to study at McGill University where he earned a Ph.D. in Microbiology. In addition to working as a senior research scientist, Lay writes short stories and fiction in Chinese. He has published one novel and a collection of short stories in Chinese.
Fiction (Short stories)
Home Sickness: Stories
Translated from the Mandarin by Darryl Sterk.
Montreal: Linda Leith Publishing, 2020.
Translation of Ni tao zhe. (Taipei: Ink Literary Monthly, 2008)
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
Connecting is not easy, but proximity is unbearable. The characters in these brilliant and intense stories are longing for escape, but they inevitably find themselves homesick.
Chih-Ying Lay, a Taiwanese-Canadian, explores our desperate need for beauty and belonging–-and the cost when what is found is the opposite of both. Lay’s characters are outsiders, whether queer, indigenous, unloved, or lost, and each discovers that home is not the sanctuary it was meant to be. Sometimes, however, they find a place to call their very own, as if to tell the reader: You can, too.
Links
Publisher Linda Leith Publishing