Coming soon! Strange tales from V City

Unnatural Recollections

Tales from Unnatural Recollections will be serialized starting from 4 November. This work was written between 1999 to 2000 and is the last book of the V City series. It was first published in book form in 2012. The titles of the series are:

1. Atlas: the Archaeology of an Imaginary City 《地圖集》(1997)

2. Visible Cities 《繁勝錄》(1998)

3. The Catalog 《夢華錄》(1999)

4. Unnatural Recollections 《博物誌》(2000)

Each of the tales in Unnatural Recollections is centered on a plant or animal species, or an artificial object, and grouped into five sections, namely “Strange Places,” “Strange People,” “Strange Things,” “Strange Incidents” and “Private Matters.”

The Chinese title 《博物誌》is borrowed from the third century classical work of Zhang Hua (張華), which is a compilation of geographical, historical, natural, fantastical and mythical knowledges. It can be translated literally as A Natural History Collection.

My title Unnatural Recollections suggests a double remove from the original. There are totally 77 short tales in the book, written in a sketchy, anecdotal style, focusing more on the atmosphere and the imagery than the plot. The 2012 edition includes illustrations by the local artist Ian Leong and they will be reproduced in the present serialization.

The preface “Shadow Tree,” which is also the first tale, will follow this post soon.

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Two of the works in the V City series have been translated into English:

Atlas: the Archaeology of an Imaginary City, trans. Anders Hansson, Bonnie S. McDougall and Dung Kai-cheung , Columbia University Press, 2012.

A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On, trans. Bonnie S. McDougall and Anders Hansson, Columbia University Press, 2022.