The Mouse Deer Kingdom
Tei, Chiew-Siah

RRP
A$19.99

It is 1905 and thousands of Chinese natives are fleeing poverty and the Qing Empire to work in the mines and plantations of South East Asia. Chai Mingzhi, an immigrant newly arrived in the port-town of Malacca, meets Engi, a young boy from the jungle, and takes the child to live with him.

Trapped in a world he doesn't recognise and finding himself caught up in Chai Mingzhi's bitter personal affairs, Engi quickly learns to take on the shape of the legendary mouse deer, and sets out to unravel the mystery surrounding Chai's past and the tragedy that destroyed him.

The Mouse Deer Kingdom is a tale of love and betrayal, and of the struggle to make a home in a new country. Set in a time of mass immigration, it questions the justice of the claims long-term settlers make on land and asks what rights they have to force their culture and language on others?

Author Information

Chiew-Siah Tei was born and raised in southern Malaysia. She has won a series of awards for her Chinese prose, including the Hua Zong International Chinese Fiction Award. She wrote the script for Night Swimmer, which won Best Short Film at the Vendome International Film Festival, and her play, Three Thousand Troubled Threads, was staged at the Edinburgh International Festival. She came to the UK to study in the 1990s, and now lives in Glasgow. Her first novel, Little Hut of Leaping Fishes, was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2007.