Mourning a Breast [Paperback]

By Xi Xi, part of the first generation of writers raised in Hong Kong, a wise and amiably written book of autobiographical fiction on the author’s experience with breast cancer—from diagnosis to treatment to recovery—and her passage from a life lived through the mind into a life lived through the body.

In 1989, the acclaimed Hong Kong writer Xi Xi was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her semi-autobiographical novel Mourning a Breast is a disarmingly honest and inventive account of the author’s experience of a mastectomy and of her subsequent recovery. The book opens with her putting away a bathing suit. As the routine pleasure of swimming is revoked, the small loss stands in for the greater one. But Xi Xi’s mourning begins to take shape as a form of activism. Addressing her reader as frankly and unashamedly as an old friend, she describes what she is going through; finds consolation in art, literature, and cinema; and advocates for a universal literacy of the body. Mourning a Breast was heralded as one of the first Chinese-language books to cast off the stigma of writing about illness and to expose the myths associated with breast cancer. It is a radical novel about creating in the midst of mourning.2024 NBCC Awards Longlist: Barrios Book in Translation Prize

“This superb work of autofiction from Xi Xi (1937–2022), which was originally published in 1992, melds an account of the author’s breast cancer with a reflection on the subjective nature of translation…. Xi Xi’s matter-of-fact prose and in-depth analysis are deeply satisfying. This is a must.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Xi Xi’s fascinating imagination and brave avant-garde spirit make her an important and distinctive lS#