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Sweet Li Jie
In Sweet Li Jie, two distant worlds Wuhan Province in China and British Guiana.
Jia Yun, a traveling textile merchant, leaves Wuhan to join the exodus of migrants escaping poverty. Most of them to become indentured labourers in the canefields of Demerara.
Through heartfelt letters intended for his sweetheart, Li Jie, Jia Yun paints a vivid picture of life for Indians, Africans, and other ethnic groups under British rule during the twilight years of indentureship. Meanwhile, the novel's sections set in China reveal the struggles of rural Wuhan under a crumbling feudal regime.
"Sweet Li Jie" delves into complex interpersonal relations, from the landlord-servant dynamics in Wuhan to the bond between Jia Yun and his Afro-Guyanese guide, Harris. Amid vulnerability and uncertainty, and the complexities of living in servitude, these characters grapple for personhood and interdependence.
Jia Yun, a traveling textile merchant, leaves Wuhan to join the exodus of migrants escaping poverty. Most of them to become indentured labourers in the canefields of Demerara.
Through heartfelt letters intended for his sweetheart, Li Jie, Jia Yun paints a vivid picture of life for Indians, Africans, and other ethnic groups under British rule during the twilight years of indentureship. Meanwhile, the novel's sections set in China reveal the struggles of rural Wuhan under a crumbling feudal regime.
"Sweet Li Jie" delves into complex interpersonal relations, from the landlord-servant dynamics in Wuhan to the bond between Jia Yun and his Afro-Guyanese guide, Harris. Amid vulnerability and uncertainty, and the complexities of living in servitude, these characters grapple for personhood and interdependence.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
166 pages, Paperback
Published December 26, 2024
25 people want to read
About the author
David Dabydeen
35 books28 followersDavid Dabydeen (born 9 December 1955) is a Guyanese-born critic, writer, novelist and academic. Since 2010 he has been Guyana's ambassador to China.
Dabydeen is the author of novels, collections of poetry and works of non-fiction and criticism, as editor as well as writer. His first book, Slave Song (1984), a collection of poetry, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Quiller-Couch Prize. A further collection, Turner: New and Selected Poems, was published in 1994, and reissued in 2002; the title-poem, Turner is an extended sequence or verse novel responding to a painting by J. M. W. Turner, "Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon coming on" (1840).
His first novel, The Intended (1991), the story of a young Asian student abandoned in London by his father, won the Guyana Prize for Literature. Disappearance (1993) tells the story of a young Guyanese engineer working on the south coast of England who lodges with an elderly woman. The Counting House (1996) is set at the end of the nineteenth century and narrates the experiences of an Indian couple whose hopes of a new life in colonial Guyana end in tragedy. The story explores historical tensions between indentured Indian workers and Guyanese of African descent. His 1999 novel, A Harlot's Progress, is based on a series of pictures painted in 1732 by William Hogarth (who was the subject of Dabydeen's PhD) and develops the story of Hogarth's black slave boy. Through the character of Mungo, Dabydeen challenges traditional cultural representations of the slave. His latest novel, Our Lady of Demerara, was published in 2004.
Dabydeen has been awarded the title of fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the second West Indian writer (V.S. Naipaul was the first) and the only Guyanese writer to receive the title.
In 2001 Dabydeen wrote and presented The Forgotten Colony, a BBC Radio 4 programme exploring the history of Guyana. His one-hour documentary Painting the People was broadcast by BBC television in 2004.
The Oxford Companion to Black British History, co-edited by Dabydeen, John Gilmore and Cecily Jones, appeared in 2007.
In 2007, Dabydeen was awarded the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award for his outstanding contribution to literature and the intellectual life of the Indian diaspora.
(from Wikipedia)
Dabydeen is the author of novels, collections of poetry and works of non-fiction and criticism, as editor as well as writer. His first book, Slave Song (1984), a collection of poetry, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Quiller-Couch Prize. A further collection, Turner: New and Selected Poems, was published in 1994, and reissued in 2002; the title-poem, Turner is an extended sequence or verse novel responding to a painting by J. M. W. Turner, "Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhoon coming on" (1840).
His first novel, The Intended (1991), the story of a young Asian student abandoned in London by his father, won the Guyana Prize for Literature. Disappearance (1993) tells the story of a young Guyanese engineer working on the south coast of England who lodges with an elderly woman. The Counting House (1996) is set at the end of the nineteenth century and narrates the experiences of an Indian couple whose hopes of a new life in colonial Guyana end in tragedy. The story explores historical tensions between indentured Indian workers and Guyanese of African descent. His 1999 novel, A Harlot's Progress, is based on a series of pictures painted in 1732 by William Hogarth (who was the subject of Dabydeen's PhD) and develops the story of Hogarth's black slave boy. Through the character of Mungo, Dabydeen challenges traditional cultural representations of the slave. His latest novel, Our Lady of Demerara, was published in 2004.
Dabydeen has been awarded the title of fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the second West Indian writer (V.S. Naipaul was the first) and the only Guyanese writer to receive the title.
In 2001 Dabydeen wrote and presented The Forgotten Colony, a BBC Radio 4 programme exploring the history of Guyana. His one-hour documentary Painting the People was broadcast by BBC television in 2004.
The Oxford Companion to Black British History, co-edited by Dabydeen, John Gilmore and Cecily Jones, appeared in 2007.
In 2007, Dabydeen was awarded the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award for his outstanding contribution to literature and the intellectual life of the Indian diaspora.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 22, 2025
This is a long-short novel that took me some time to get into. It is only 166 pages, but it covered so much detail, spanned so many locations and events, and unveiled so much history, that it felt like a lot more than 166 pages. In the end, I think it is necessarily long-short.
David Dabydeen expertly contextualises human condition and cruelty, deception and desperation in poverty, and the horrors of colonialism, wherever it is the order of the day.
Yet, in a very reassuring way, Dabydeen reveals the power of love, and the light it represents in so much darkness. How humans cross expanses of oceans to earn love, then eventually to find love.
This is my first historical fiction novel that focuses primarily on Chinese migration and indentureship in Guyana, and it confirmed for me, several of the thoughts that I had previously regarding this exodus of Chinese migrants and indentured servants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and of course indentureship in general). In this novel, we get an outline, not a justification, of the racial tensions that continue to keep societies in Guyana (and Trinidad) fractured. The colonisers pitted different groups against each other, shifting potential hate away from themselves (the colonisers) and onto other groups of colonised people. Dabydeen uses the character of Jia Yun as a metaphor for what could be if the colonised unified or at least had vision beyond hue. Even when faced with the choice to be distrustful of the people he meets, like Afro-Guyanese Harris or the Indo-Guyanese Gurr, Jia Yun persists with his acquaintances, trying to find hope where there is despair, and love for someone he has not seen in ages. In all 166 pages, it is not Harris or Gurr who betray his trust, but his own "countrymen". Read of that what you will.
Dabydeen also paints us horrid pictures of life in China, particularly in Wuhan and Xiamen. Many indentured servants and migrants who ended up in Guyana (and the Caribbean) were escaping a feudal land system that was no better than the system of land domination in Guyana. Oppression is oppression and any system where the elite control swathes of land where peasants have to toil for pittance will always be cruelty.
There is definitely a lot to unpack in these 166 pages, and as Harris pointed out, "how small we are, Mr Jia Yun, and yet, how big!"
David Dabydeen expertly contextualises human condition and cruelty, deception and desperation in poverty, and the horrors of colonialism, wherever it is the order of the day.
Yet, in a very reassuring way, Dabydeen reveals the power of love, and the light it represents in so much darkness. How humans cross expanses of oceans to earn love, then eventually to find love.
This is my first historical fiction novel that focuses primarily on Chinese migration and indentureship in Guyana, and it confirmed for me, several of the thoughts that I had previously regarding this exodus of Chinese migrants and indentured servants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and of course indentureship in general). In this novel, we get an outline, not a justification, of the racial tensions that continue to keep societies in Guyana (and Trinidad) fractured. The colonisers pitted different groups against each other, shifting potential hate away from themselves (the colonisers) and onto other groups of colonised people. Dabydeen uses the character of Jia Yun as a metaphor for what could be if the colonised unified or at least had vision beyond hue. Even when faced with the choice to be distrustful of the people he meets, like Afro-Guyanese Harris or the Indo-Guyanese Gurr, Jia Yun persists with his acquaintances, trying to find hope where there is despair, and love for someone he has not seen in ages. In all 166 pages, it is not Harris or Gurr who betray his trust, but his own "countrymen". Read of that what you will.
Dabydeen also paints us horrid pictures of life in China, particularly in Wuhan and Xiamen. Many indentured servants and migrants who ended up in Guyana (and the Caribbean) were escaping a feudal land system that was no better than the system of land domination in Guyana. Oppression is oppression and any system where the elite control swathes of land where peasants have to toil for pittance will always be cruelty.
There is definitely a lot to unpack in these 166 pages, and as Harris pointed out, "how small we are, Mr Jia Yun, and yet, how big!"
October 14, 2024
The saying that writing takes you places is, as we all know, is a cliché but it is undeniable that this is true. David Dabydeen’s latest novel is about a period of history that I did not know about and that is the Chinese diaspora to South America.
The book opens in Wuhan in 1875 where David Dabydeen sets out the scene and characters. The title character, her ‘lover’ Jia Yun , her mother Ma Hongniang, the fake doctor Du Fu, the bookish Wang and his bodyguard, the ex circus performer Baoyu.
Due to the poverty in China Jia Yun moves to the plantations of Guyana and documents life there via letters to Sweet Li Jie. At the same time the reader finds out about the characters in Wuhan.
Sweet Li Jie is about colonialism and it’s negative effect on people. In Guyana it has lead to slavery and a degradation of the natives. As Jia Yun talks about life in the plantation, the more a picture we get of the hardships (the jigger section is fascinating), exploitation and cruelty which existed. There’s also the methods of retaliation against the colonisers from the black workers in the plantation which includes cannibalism and fighting.
For a relatively thin book there is a powerful portrait of what happens to a population under another rule. here details are mentioned in the book which have a more significant role when related to the theme. The bicycle that Sweet Li Jie rides in the beginning of the book is a link to colonial attitudes. Another example being, Du Fu as a fake medic also stems from history’s foibles.
Coming from an ex British colony, although not as harsh as the one in the novel, I knew what the characters were feeling. Despite the fact that it’s been 60 years since independence, as a country we still feel the after effects of a colony, mainly in our collective low self esteem, despite our attempts to distant ourselves from our history, the colonial yoke is there and the characters in Sweet Li Jie cannot escape it either.
The book opens in Wuhan in 1875 where David Dabydeen sets out the scene and characters. The title character, her ‘lover’ Jia Yun , her mother Ma Hongniang, the fake doctor Du Fu, the bookish Wang and his bodyguard, the ex circus performer Baoyu.
Due to the poverty in China Jia Yun moves to the plantations of Guyana and documents life there via letters to Sweet Li Jie. At the same time the reader finds out about the characters in Wuhan.
Sweet Li Jie is about colonialism and it’s negative effect on people. In Guyana it has lead to slavery and a degradation of the natives. As Jia Yun talks about life in the plantation, the more a picture we get of the hardships (the jigger section is fascinating), exploitation and cruelty which existed. There’s also the methods of retaliation against the colonisers from the black workers in the plantation which includes cannibalism and fighting.
For a relatively thin book there is a powerful portrait of what happens to a population under another rule. here details are mentioned in the book which have a more significant role when related to the theme. The bicycle that Sweet Li Jie rides in the beginning of the book is a link to colonial attitudes. Another example being, Du Fu as a fake medic also stems from history’s foibles.
Coming from an ex British colony, although not as harsh as the one in the novel, I knew what the characters were feeling. Despite the fact that it’s been 60 years since independence, as a country we still feel the after effects of a colony, mainly in our collective low self esteem, despite our attempts to distant ourselves from our history, the colonial yoke is there and the characters in Sweet Li Jie cannot escape it either.
January 11, 2026
A beautiful book - should be read by every Guyanese and every Caribbean person - and everyone in the world.
It has inspired me to read more and learn more about the history of my country (Guyana) - we always learn so much in school about our colonial past but now I am even more curious about the Chinese influence beyond food and corner shops etc.
A masterpiece. And congratulations on your Nobel Prize nomination! Well deserved. Honored to have been in a book club conversation with the author!
It has inspired me to read more and learn more about the history of my country (Guyana) - we always learn so much in school about our colonial past but now I am even more curious about the Chinese influence beyond food and corner shops etc.
A masterpiece. And congratulations on your Nobel Prize nomination! Well deserved. Honored to have been in a book club conversation with the author!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews