About Wayson Choy

Born in Vancouver, Wayson Choy was 56 when he published his first novel, The Jade Peony. The tale had a long gestation, starting out as a short story written for a 1977 University of British Columbia creative writing class taught by Carol Shields. The story was published in 1979, and then evolved into a novel.

Almost 20 years later, in 1995, The Jade Peony was published to wide acclaim. The novel won Ontario's Trillium Book Award and the City of Vancouver Book Award, and spent six months on the Globe and Mail's national bestseller list.

Wayson followed this remarkable debut with a memoir, Paper Shadows, in 1999, which won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award, the Charles Taylor Prize and the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize.

All That Matters, a companion novel to The Jade Peony, was published in 2004. It won the Trillium and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His second memoir and most recent publication, Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying, was published in 2009 to rave reviews.

Wayson taught English literature at Toronto's Humber College for more than 25 years and continues to live in Toronto.

He hosted the 2005 documentary Searching for Confucius, which premiered on Vision TV. That same year, Wayson was appointed to the Order of Canada and won the Harbourfront Festival Prize, awarded annually to a writer who "has made a substantial contribution to the world of books and writing."

 

About The Jade Peony

Wayson Choy's poignant, award-winning debut novel, The Jade Peony, is told from the point of view of three siblings who come of age in Vancouver's Chinatown during the Depression and war years.

Jook-Liang, the family's only girl, and her brothers Jung-Sum and Sek-Lung (nicknamed Sekky) were all born in Canada, but their parents and the rest of the family are recent immigrants. The children grow up torn between the reality of their lives outside the family circle and the old-world traditions that prevail at home.

The children are drawn to figures from North American popular culture, from cowboys to Shirley Temple, but they're also captivated by the magical stories told by Poh-Poh, their grandmother. Her mythic tales feature ghosts, dragons and characters from Chinese folklore such as the Monkey King and the scary Fox Lady.

The three have very different experiences of life in their family and the world at large. Sekky, the youngest, witnesses a love affair between his Chinese-Canadian babysitter and a young man of Japanese heritage, which plays out against the backdrop of the racism that flourished during the Second World War.

The Jade Peony is a sensitive depiction of the collision between cultures that all newcomers experience — and the conflicts within families that can arise as a result. It's also a vivid evocation of the division between the world of adults and the world of childhood, rendered with insight, humour and grace.

Wayson Choy's tale began life as a short story of the same name, which was widely anthologized in Canada and the U.S. after its publication in 1979. The novel, published in 1995, won both Ontario's Trillium Book Award and the City of Vancouver Book Award and garnered glowing reviews at home and abroad.

Samantha Nutt is defending The Jade Peony for Canada Reads.

 

Playlist

We asked Wayson Choy for the music that best suits The Jade Peony, and he opted mostly for songs from the time period that the novel covers. Here's his list, with personal liner notes!

On the Good Ship Lollipop by Shirley Temple. Beloved of 1920s, '30s and '40s Chinatown moviegoers. Part of the fantasy life of many little Chinatown girls.

Mama's Little Baby Loves Short'nin' Bread. Tapdance tune highlighting Chinatown's Lee Sisters.

Home on the Range by Gene Autry. It was a Chinatown boy's fantasy to grow up and be a cowboy and fight bad guys.

Ghost Riders in the Sky by Frankie Laine. Cowboy ghosts — how very like a Chinese folk tale!

A-Tisket, A-Tasket by Ella Fitzgerald. I first played it over and over again at age five, on an abandoned wind-up record player, and learned more English words.

Any crash-bang-boom Cantonese Opera excerpt introducing the King or the Warrior Prince.

On a Slow Boat to China by Lena Horne. Slow-danced to in my teenage years in dimly lit living rooms of Chinatown.