Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > English

Colonialism

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Shampa Iftakhar:
 A Many-Splendored Thing

By Han Suyin
Little, Brown, 1952

"You can't be both east and west at the same time," says British foreign correspondent Mark Elliott to the beautiful Eurasian doctor Han Suyin. But of course she can, in roiling, postwar colonial Hong Kong, where people "circulate among the bridge and mahjong tables." In Han's semiautobiographical novel "A Many-Splendored Thing," the widowed doctor embarks on a doomed, short-lived affair with the dashing—and married—journalist. The starry-eyed quality of their infatuation leads to occasional sentimentality: "Mark and I had many friends, and one of them was the moon." But the book is an invaluable—and startlingly modern—record of a certain time and place, thanks to Han's razor-sharp eye for the hypocrisies of the colonial order, as when a society matron remarks that "Hong Kong would be a wonderful place if there were not so many Chinese."

irina:
Good to know that. Thank you.

Shampa Iftakhar:
Irina apu:

feeling inspired to have your reply!!

A.S. Rafi:
much helpful. would you please add some more; specifically interpellation-based?

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