The Welsh Girl
by Peter Ho Davies
Sceptre, HK$214
Peter Ho Davies' writing has been greeted with acclaim and awards for more than a decade, yet until publishers battled it out for the rights to this debut novel, extracted in Granta in 2003, he had published only short fiction.
In a remarkable achievement the 41-year-old British-born son of a Welsh father and Chinese mother built his reputation on two prize-winning short story collections: The Ugliest House in the World (1998) and Equal Love (2000).
Since moving to the US in 1992 for graduate study in creative writing (he now teaches a graduate writing programme), he has won fellowships including a Guggenheim, been anthologised in such collections as Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and in 2003 was named by Granta as one of 20 best young British novelists.
All of this places considerable weight of expectation on Ho Davies' shoulders with the publication of The Welsh Girl. But he doesn't disappoint. This is a dense, vivid story set in a Welsh village during the second world war, unafraid to tackle difficult themes - patriotism, loyalty, identity (personal and national) - unfolding against the backdrop of a harsh physical and human landscape.