LIU HONG'S PUBLISHER is billing her as Britain's answer to Amy Tan, a comparison she is less than happy about. It's not that she's not a fan: 'I've read Amy Tan, I can't put it down,' says Britain-based Liu Hong, one of the few Chinese writers attending this week's Hong Kong International Literary Festival. It's just that Liu Hong (she prefers to be referred to by her full name) believes that her books are different to many set in late 20th century China - they testify to the moments of happiness she experienced growing up on the mainland despite political and economic hardship.
'I got fed up with people asking, 'Were you miserable?' all the time,' says the diminutive author. 'It's true that a lot of the stories were horrific, but what people thought of China was extreme. Where was the sparkle of daily life?' Still, her first book, Startling Moon (2001), had to endure comparison with successful memoirs such as Nien Cheng's Life And Death In Shanghai (1986), Jung Chang's Wild Swans (1991) and novels such as Tan's The Joy Luck Club (1989).
Both Startling Moon, and its follow-up, The Magpie Bridge, which will be published this July, are fiction. The latter, in particular, has drawn comparisons with Tan - Headline describes it as the story of three women, three generations and two gardens, in Britain and in China.
Startling Moon is the coming of age of young Taotao, who spends much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandparents, blissfully unaware of the hardships endured by her parents and maternal grandparents during the Cultural Revolution.
The author admits that much of the first third of the book, including an incident in which five-year-old Taotao cheerfully sings patriotic songs to a packed theatre to prove her mother is a good communist, is semi-autobiographical.
Liu Hong, 38, grew up near the Korean border in Manchuria and sang similar ditties, including We Wave To Our Comrades, The Koreans Across The River and I Love Tiananmen Square In Beijing.
For a long time, Liu Hong never understood the lengths her mother went to, to keep her family safe. It wasn't until she was in her 30s - when a stranger in England asked her about her childhood - that she discovered the truth. 'I'd told people it wasn't hard, but suddenly realised my parents had protected me from the suffering of my elders,' she says.
