The Lost Century

by Larissa Lai

On the eve of the return of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to China in 1997, young Tobie asks her peculiar great-aunt Violet about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II and the disappearance of her uncle Theo. From Violet, she learns the story of her grandmother, Emily.

Emily's marriage--three times--to her father's mortal enemy causes a stir among three very different Hong Kong Chinese families, as well as among the young cricketers at the Hong Kong Cricket Club, who've just witnessed King Edward VIII's abdication to marry Wallis Simpson. But the class and race pettiness of the scandal around Emily's marriage is violently disrupted by the Japanese Imperial Army's invasion of Hong Kong on Christmas Day, 1941, which plunges the colony into a landscape of violence none of its inhabitants escape from unscathed, least of all Emily. When her situation becomes dire, Violet, along with a crew of unlikely cosmopolitans determines to rescue Emily from the wrath of the person she thought loved her the most, her husband Tak-Wing. In the middle of it all, a strange match of timeless Test cricket unfolds, in which the ball has an agency all its own.

The Lost Century explores the intersections of Asian relations, queer Asian history, underground resistance, the violence of war, and the rise of modern China.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, LGBT, Queer, Asia, Canada

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2022

About the author

Larissa Lai has authored three novels, The Tiger Flu, Salt Fish Girl and When Fox Is a Thousand; two poetry collections, sybil unrest (with Rita Wong) and Automaton Biographies; a chapbook, Eggs in the Basement; and a critical book, Slanting I, Imagining We: Asian Canadian Literary Production in the 1980s and 1990s. A recipient of the Astraea Foundation Emerging Writers' Award, she has been a finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Tiptree Award, the Sunburst Award, the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Award, the bpNichol Chapbook Award, the Dorothy Livesay Prize and the ACQL Gabrielle Roy Prize for Literary Criticism.

Larissa was born in La Jolla, California and grew up in St. John's, Newfoundland. She spent the 1990s as a freelance writer and cultural organizer. Her first publication was an essay about Asian Canadian contemporary media, published in the catalogue for the 1991 exhibition Yellow Peril: Reconsidered. She has held writer-in-residence positions at the University of Calgary, Simon Fraser University and the University of Guelph. In 2001, she completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. From 2001-2006, she did a PhD in English at the University of Calgary. She was Assistant Professor in Canadian Literature at UBC from 2007-2014. In 2014, she returned to the University of Calgary to take up a Canada Research Chair in Creative Writing.

She likes dogs, is afraid of cats, and feels at home in both Vancouver and Calgary.

Reviews

[Fraser Simons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ophelia’s Great Aunt Violet sits down with her for a meal on the day of the 1977 handover ceremony transferring Hong Kong from British governance to China. Chronicling about a decade, from 1932 to ‘42ish, Violet recounts how two feuding families’ fates become entangled, as both houses struggle to find themselves with the fallout of the Japanese invasion and occupation.

Themes around colonization and tradition working together to remove Agency and put members of the family on self-destructive, completely avoidable paths—and the importance of equality, centering on the female characters—illustrate the complexity of harm done to a population by larger forces, solely driven by mad and wild ideals the men of both countries hold.

While not gratuitous, events that often happen in fiction intersecting wars like this do occur. Sexual assault and just heinous, horrible things happening on a macro and granular level. It starts off almost lighthearted, this feud between families; references of Romeo and Juliet are made. It’s really nothing compared to what comes in later years and the war breaks out, and what the women have to struggle through. So, buckle up for that aspect. Interestingly, the war time aspect intersects with Canadians in some ways I wouldn’t have expected either. I liked that a lot.

One thing that bothered me is always a personal gripe with stories like this: The storyteller, in this case Violet, is never diegetic when we are reading what she is ostensibly telling Ophelia, and that kind of stuff always bugs me. It digresses into third person granular abstractions with interjections from Violet in the first person. Not at all how someone actually telling the story would sound like or describe things, until the interjections. And even then it’s dicey, really. Why not just make the whole thing third person then? Always needles me.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

an incredible book. a brutal account of the japanese occupation of hong kong and a thoughtful exploration of the complexity of hong kong history and identity. REALLY well-researched (and love that she cites madeleine thien as an influence!).

[Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is surely an indictment against colonialism.  And I do wonder why two island nations, the UK and Japan, were so rabid about expanding and conquering.  Not enough resources on said islands?  Both were certainly cruel and inhumane in many ways.  Did their island experiences make them moreso?

I would rate this between 2 and 3 stars.  The story is intriguing and the plotting has some intricate and clever elements.  The tone and pacing are glitchy and the writing a bit plain.  And the dialogue is stilted and stiff.

There were a good amount of soapbox moments and the obvious explaining (eg the ways Hong Kong has been oppressed) didn't help. These were lists...itemizations of this or that.

I did learn about times. These included the initial alliance the Nationalists was considering, the many allegiances and strategies different people made to survive, how the Nazi brownshirts influenced the Nationalist blueshirts, etc. There was a lot.

I thought it was cool that WEB Du Bois and the North American (Canadian, in this case) code talkers were mentioned here.  The sections that depict the cricket game were particularly tiresome.

Lastly, Auntie Violet could not have known so many, if not all, details. It seems unrealistic that she would know the private thoughts and actions of everyone around her.  She certainly does know how to eat well.  The food that she and Ophelia have sounds amazing.

I've seen the author in many speaker forums, and I like her responsiveness to readers as well her philosophy and politics. I would like to see her speak again.

[Shannon Vanderstreaten · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good god this is dreadful. I hyped this book up so much in my head but it’s awful. There are too many characters and without a family tree at the beginning I lost track of who was who early on. The synopsis is a lie, what is meant to be the main intrigue happens in 2 pages at the end and you don’t get closure on it anyway. Queer history my tuckus, there’s one guy doing a Carmen Miranda bit and Violet cross-dresses for the breakout, but don’t put that as a selling point and then not deliver on anything.

Also, don’t promise cricket and then get cricket wrong!! “The umpire pointed to the ground with his forefinger to signal a boundary. This gave the British team 6 runs” (p. 281) WHAT? NO!

In addition to this, some of the writing was bad. “The ball tore toward the striker’s wicket like a B52 bomber from the future” (p. 300) “Stinky hole translator” (p. 332) like it’s so childish and poor!

I wish I had quit on page 80, not good at all.

[Abigail]

I was bored and the mode of storytelling was incompatible with the author’s narrative abilities.

[maia ‼️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

ramble/review: this was a very interesting read even though it took me forever to get through. lai uses a lot of second person and experiments (for lack of a better word?) with the idea of memory and oral storytelling as unreliable but necessary conveyors of trauma, both in an individual sense and a cultural sense. i’m not sure that all of it works, and some parts of this book were kind of all over the place, but i can’t tell if i was kind of lukewarm on it for a good reason or i’m just unaccustomed to this kind of novel structure. also i was queerness to have a much more explicit role based on the book’s description but it wasn’t there?? overall i really liked some of the themes, especially the meshing of colonialism and collective trauma, of women’s and familial roles, and i think lai did a great job of memorializing/depicting british hong kong pre-japanese invasion. tw for sa, rape, and domestic abuse.

[Elena L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My generation endured so yours wouldn't have to."

1997, on the eve of the return of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to China - Ophelia and her great-aunt Violet are waiting for the food in a restaurant when Ophelia asks her about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during WWII, the disappearance of her uncle Raymond and whether her grandmother (Emily Mah) murdered the husband.

1930s-1940s, China is still suffering from the effects of opium, imposed on them by the British. While embracing the Western influence and melting into the modernization, people still want to bring back all the glory from the past (Song, Tang dynasties,...). Hong Kong is cornered by British imperialism, Japanese fascism and Chinese Civil War.

Alternating between multiple perspectives, the story spans from when Emily and Violet were young to the events during Japanese imperial army invasion. This novel is a complex family saga in which one follows the Asian relations between different Chinese families (mainly Lee, Mah and Cheung).
While digging into Ophelia's roots (family history), wandering ghosts bring to the surface history of suffering and brutality. One envision their attempt to survive amidst the political unrest, often unable to escape the damage of centuries of violence. There's, painfully, an unbearable shame, growing into spirits toughened by cruelty.

In the face of what feels like plenty of (infuriating) tragedies, Lai shapes hope through resilience and resistance. Each character was distinctive - their characterization were multi-dimensional and I was looking forward to them. I appreciated reading about the origin of Chinese people (Hakka, Tanka, Han,...), and Chinese and HK history; furthermore, some mentions such as 'Du Bois' were pure inspiration. Lai masterfully balances queer Asian history, war, colonialism, imperialism, love and loyalty in a riveting story with consistent pace. The intimate tone and gorgeous prose allow us to fully savor this story. We are, ultimately, hungering for lost and forgotten memories, which power we linger on to honor our past. The century is not truly lost.

THE LOST CENTURY examines the devastating impact of the Japanese and British occupation in Hong Kong. It's ambitious, intense and eye-opening. I will be digesting this story for a while and Larissa Lai just became an auto-buy author for me. In short, I hope everyone read this book.

[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - Arsenal Pulp . All opinions are my own ]

[Bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really good! Also very long. I knew like nothing about the history of Hong Kong going into this so it was very interesting. My brain hurts from reading it so fast.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feckless girl marries son of her father's nemesis is the start of two intertwined families' fates against sprawling background of Hong Kong history in all its vibrancy. 'Doubly colonized' by the British and Japanese, now on the year of Hong Kong handover to China (1997), great-aunt Violet recounts to her grandniece Ophelia what happened in those upheaval years.

Familiarity with Hong Kong coupled with conscientious research makes the little intricate details such as the Tanka people's way of life on boats, Wong Nai Chung Village and the iconic Hong Kong Cricket Club come alive. The effects of colonialism, imperialism and war on the Hong Kong people is heartbreaking. Larissa Lai describes so well the ambiguous feeling they felt during that time, having been abandoned by the cowardly British and ravished cruelly by the Japanese; the KMT and communists working in hiding to repel the occupying Japanese. Some supported the East River Communists while others' sympathies lay with the nationalist Kuomintang. The civilians just tried to survive. That cricket match was riveting, not because of the sport itself, but the stakes at hand and what those on the 'British' team were trying to achieve with delaying tactics in the middle of war. The alluring idea of a 'Pan-Asia' free of white European colonialism was met with the reality of a brutal Japanese occupation.

The cast of characters is quite large but each of their unique personalities and backgrounds are distinctive. Some are based off actual historical figures. Captain Lee, Cheung, Tak Tam, Tak Wing, Ting Yan, Violet, Emily, Horace, Noma, Courchene and so many others, their stories lodge into the heart and imagination. The two intertwined families are the Mah and Cheung families, the feud due to deadly 'anti-opium' pills. William Courchen is an intriguing Black Métis Canadian character with the Winnipeg Grenadiers, who having imbibed Du Bois's ideas, travels to HK to get ideas on throwing off the shackles of imperialism for his people. The setting and description of the early Hakka, Tanka and Punti people are really evocative.

All the ghosts of the Qing Dynasty clearances,...,were layered beneath the traces of the thousands murdered during the Hakka-Punti wars and the Red Turban and Taiping Rebellions.

Highly recommend this historical fiction novel. The title, I reckon, harkens back to the time of the end of the Qing Dynasty, the aftermath of the Opium wars, the triads, colonization by the British and then the Japanese, later the Chinese civil war. Wonder what is in store for Hong Kong this century?

Content Warnings: Colonisation, War, Alcoholism, Colonisation, Murder, Rape, Torture, Domestic abuse, Infedility, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Racial slurs and Medical content

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

[4.5 stars, rounded up to 5]

“But all pasts are only dreams, unless you have a real way of making them present.”

Larissa Lai’s THE LOST CENTURY is a truly powerful work of historical fiction that I don’t see much on here, but I’d love for more folks to dig into it.

THE LOST CENTURY follows two Hong Kong Chinese sisters, Violet and Emily, in the wake of Emily’s scandalous decision to elope with the son of their father’s nemesis. The ensuing familial fallout takes second chair to the violence and turmoil of Japan’s invasion of Hong Kong, throwing all of their lives into chaos and disarray.

I loved Lai’s choice to frame this narrative as Violet, now quite elderly, revealing the family history to a young Ophelia right as Hong Kong becomes part of the PRC in 1997. There is so much exploration of memory, forgetting, and family in these pages, and Lai has explored all of these themes with thoughtfulness and deftness. I particularly appreciated the way that Lai highlights the cultural tension many Hong Kong Chinese residents had between assimilation into some sort of “modern” British-adjacent identity or adherence to “traditional” values (and of course Lai through her characters questions why western mores are usually considered inherently modern or progressive). And there’s a lot to be said about Hong Kong’s situation both within Empire and struggles of people of the global majority for dignity and self-determination more broadly.

Anyway, lots of words from me here to say that this is a fantastic book that’s quite well executed; fans of historical fiction will definitely love this one, so I highly recommend picking it up!

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read my review on the Northwest Review: https://nwreview.org/reviews/the-lost...

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.75 stars.

It’s the eve of the handover in Hong Kong, 1997, when young Ophelia asks her great aunt Violet about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. From Violet, she finally learns the story of her grandmother Emily. In this meandering novel, we learn about Ophelia’s grandmother, her marriages, how class, race and status impacted her life, and the fallout of the Japanese army’s invasion of Hong Kong.

Upon a violent backdrop, this was a fascinating and moving story that explores Asian relations in an important moment of history, underground resistance, the daily life of those in Hong Kong, and the ascent of modern China. My own family are from Hong Kong and, since I can no longer ask my own grandparents, I really loved tracing ‘old Hong Kong’ through this sprawling story. At times, the pacing really lost me, but there’s so much humanity poured into this novel; Lai paints a memorable picture.

[Chloe · Rating 2 out of 5]

My rambling thoughts- This book recounted the war crimes and trauma felt during the war. However, the book was less of a romance and action filled novel (like suggested in the synopsis) and more of a slow recounting of historical-type events. Overall, the character development comprised most of the book and what was described in the synopsis took place in the last 70 pages or so. This book did explore the intersection of Asian relations well, but the ”queer Asian history” and “betrayal” that were most appealing to me were minimally portrayed in the book.

[kimuchi (on Storygraph) child of the god of thunder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I looove Larissa Lai, and I liked this book. It was different from her others, more a historical novel and less cool legendary and mythical like When Fox is a Thousand or Salt Fish Girl. I’m sick to death of war stories. No, specifically sick of WWII stories. So I appreciated learning a bit more about the China-Japan conflict. I liked it but I didn’t love it. A solid 4.5 stars but I’m stingy and so must round down.

[Marilyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am sorry ! Did not finish. I figured I have so many books I do like and not tons of years left so I am returning it to the library.
It was meant to be historical fiction of China & Japan when the British occupied it, up until it was reverted back to the Chinese.
So many characters and long winded like a Ken Folett novel that I had to make a flow chart to keep track of everyone!

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is packed with the fragmented history of our world.

Lai's writing is bold, but uneven and jarring in style at times. The first half and latter half of the book are completely disjointed; Lai has said that ultimately this book is a romance, and while I believe that for the first half, I don't think that statement rings true for the second.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Compelling story that sheds light on the Japanese occupation of Honk Kong and the complex relationship with colonizers— British and Japanese. A complicated cricket match in the middle illustrates all the strange alliances and simmering rancor. I almost wish we didn’t have the envelope of Violet telling this tale to a grand Niece. The story didn’t need so much at the end.

[carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really liked the structure and found the story very interesting (jumpscare when ubc was mentioned) (jumpscare when the author cited the same books i did for my term paper) but it was cool reading a more personal narrative set in the period i spent a semester studying

[Kab · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5

[Alysha · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Asian-Canadian, this book felt like listening to my grandmother tell me her story. I read this book for an undergraduate Canadian literature course and we discussed how it fell into the postcolonial historical fiction genre because of its critique on colonialism. This book has two main parts to it - Hong Kong during the British colonial rule and the years during the Japanese occupation. At times it felt like Lai was listing the atrocities that were happening and reasons why colonialism is bad. I liked the theme of reclaiming memories and telling the stories of a past that isn't talked about much because of how much trauma a generation went through and tried to forget.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good take on storytelling-inside-the-book. This was such a complex, heavy story that was clearly based in a lot of research. I think that Japanese colonization in Hong Kong is not a topic frequently explored in literature, and I commend Larissa Lai for tackling it. I do, however, much prefer Salt Fish Girl only because I like its more lyrical, abstract style.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the eve of the return of Hong Kong as a British colony to China in 1997, Tobie asks her great aunt Violet about the Japanese occupation during WW2. What ensues is a tragic and hidden family history and a rare chance for Tobie to learn about her grandmother, Emily.

In LOST CENTURY, Lai takes readers on a captivating journey through the little-known history of Hong Kong, skillfully weaving an oral history that feels both expansive and intimate. Brace yourself for a plethora of characters in the beginning & consider keeping a note of names to navigate the intricate connections of each character!

The backdrop of LOST CENTURY spans from the juncture of the civil war between Nationalists and Communists to WW2 during the Japanese occupation, providing a rich historical tapestry of Hong Kong's history that isn't always widely known or commonly written. Lai's meticulous research shines through, grounding the narrative in the gritty reality of the time.

What sets this historical fiction apart is the remarkable voice of Violet. Her straightforward narrative style uniquely blends wit and raw emotion, even when delving into profoundly traumatic moments. It's a refreshing and sometimes unsettling approach that gives me all the feels and keeps me engaged.

While Violet's perspective is compelling, I wish Emily had a more substantial presence in the story. The narrative focuses on the aftermath of the Japanese occupation, leaving me curious about Emily's healing process and how the pervasive violence from the colonizers & men in her own community has impacted the sisters.

I'm blown away by LOST CENTURY, and I highly recommend that those who want to read more about Asian history pick up this severely underhyped gem. Lai's careful craftsmanship and Violet's captivating voice make it a worthwhile journey through a pivotal period in Hong Kong's past.