Five with Fisher - Angel Di Zhang
This interview is the first to come with a caveat! Angel would like you all to know that she is good friends with the interviewer and is capable of being serious when it is called for.*
*It was not called for in this instance.
Five with Fisher is an interview wherein I give the author a list of fifteen questions and ask them to choose and answer five of them. Angel complained at length (not LONG length, I suppose) that the questions were too hard, and I will admit that I think her answers reflect her opinion of my interview skills!
Q: Give me an unexpected or strange piece of writing advice.
A: You do not need anyone to grant you permission to call yourself a writer. If you write, you are a writer. Publishing just makes you a published writer. Writing—the actual act of doing—makes you a writer.
Q: What would be your writer "mascot"? A raven? A narwhal? Something else? Why?
A: I do not worship idols.
Q: Tell me about a research hole you fell into when writing one of your books.
A: I'm working on my second book, which is about a writer who sells her soul for a book deal. I wanted my protagonist Aria's life to be more than just publishing, so asked my friends to suggest hobbies. Gardening came up, and so FoR rEsEArch, I am now growing banana trees... in Canada. By the time the book publishes, I expect to live inside a greenhouse banana autocracy. (NB: there are no bananas in my second book.)
Q: Tell me a secret.
A: No.
Q: Tell me what happens AFTER the end of your story. What kind of happily (or not!) ever after do your characters get!
A: I believe that THE LIGHT OF ETERNAL SPRING is not one story but many stories; that is why the dedication page says "to you." Each reader brings their own unique life experiences and perspective to the novel. All interpretations are valid.
If you enjoy Angel’s (non)answers to these interview questions, I think you will greatly enjoy her debut novel, The Light of Eternal Spring.
Angel Di Zhang's intensely cinematic debut novel travels from the streets of New York City to northeast China, on the trail of a young photographer who needs to reconcile with her dead mother before she is able see the world again.
Amy Hilton, born Wu Aimee in the tiny Chinese village of Eternal Spring, has been living and working as a photographer in New York City for so long she’s started to dream in English. When in the fall of 1999 she receives a letter from her sister, written in her birth tongue of Manchu, she needs to take it to a Chinatown produce vendor to get it translated. And so it is this stranger who tells Amy that her mother has died of a broken heart.
Amy blames herself. How could she not? Her mother has never recovered from her oldest daughter leaving her, first for school, then to pursue her art, and finally to marry a white man. Vowing to be there for her mother in death as she hasn't been in life, she books a flight to China. Haunted by the folk stories her mother told her about a shaman's journey to the underworld to retrieve her child, Amy undertakes a quest that strips away all the elements of her new identity, leaving her ready to make amends. But when she finally reunites with her family, things are far different than she remembers, and her loved ones are less than thrilled to welcome their prodigal daughter home.
Interwoven with indelible scenes from Amy's childhood, The Light of Eternal Spring is a tenderly told story about leaving home and returning again, and about forgetting where you come from until you can't forget any longer. Blending playful magical realism with the family balancing acts all immigrants and artists know so well, Angel Di Zhang creates a nuanced portrait of family lost and family found, of the transformative power of art, and of the need to transform yourself in order to make art that's true.
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