Hardback: From award-winning Hong Kong writer Chan Ho-kei, The Borrowed (2016) tells the story of Kwan Chun-dok, a Hong Kong detective who rises from constable to senior inspector over the span of several decades, from the 1960s to the present day, and becomes a legend in the force, nicknamed “the Eye of Heaven” by his amazed colleagues.
Divided into six sections told in reverse chronological order - each of which covers an important case in Kwan’s career and takes place at a pivotal moment in Hong Kong history - the novel follows Kwan from his experiences during the Leftist Riot in 1967, when a bombing plot threatens many lives; the conflict between the HK Police and ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) in 1977; the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989; the Handover in 1997; and the present day of 2013, when Kwan is called on to solve his final case, the murder of a local billionaire, while Hong Kong increasingly resembles a police state.
Along the way we meet Communist rioters, ultraviolent gangsters, stallholders at the city’s many covered markets, pop singers enmeshed in the high-stakes machinery of star-making, and a people always caught in the shifting balance of political power, whether in London or Beijing.
The Borrowed reveals just how closely everything is connected, how history always repeats itself, and how we have come full circle to repeat the political upheaval and societal unrest of the past. It is a gripping, brilliantly constructed novel from a talented new voice.
The Borrowed is the story of Hong Kong.
The Borrowed is translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang.
About the author: Chan Ho-Kei 陳浩基 was born and raised in Hong Kong. He has worked as a software engineer, scriptwriter, game designer and editor of comic magazines. His writing career started in 2008 at the age of thirty-three, with the short story ‘The Case of Jack and the Beanstalk,’ which was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award. He went on to win the award again the following year with ‘The Locked Room of Bluebeard.’
In 2011, Chan’s first novel, The Man Who Sold The World, won the biggest mystery prize in the Chinese-speaking world, the Soji Shimada Mystery Award, and has subsequently been published in Taiwan (Crown), China (New Star), Japan (Bungeishunju), Thailand (Nanmee) and Italy (Metropoli d’Asia). The Borrowed has now been published in eight countries, and the film rights have been bought by director Wong Kar-wai.
Jeremy Tiang is an author, playwright and translator. His short story collection It Never Rains on National Day is published by Epigram Books, and his writing has appeared in the Guardian, Esquire, Ambit and Litro among others. He has translated more than ten books from Chinese, including work by Yeng Pway Ngon and Zhang Yueran. He lives in New York.
Rating: 5/5
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