A SHIMMERING SEA: HONG KONG STORIES tells of a quest for home, told through a vivid and lyrical sequence of narratives. Sophronia Liu chronicles first her beginnings in 1950s Hong Kong. Her parents – each an indigenous inhabitant of a clan village – had very different life-experiences from each other. Her father attended prestigious King’s College as a scholarship student; her mother, an illiterate peasant, was fully occupied in raising ten children. Among the episodes, some tell of her growing up during the 1960s: of a grade school classmate’s tragic suicide, the arrival of a rambunctious and feisty domestic helper from the countryside, plainclothes detectives who came to her home to solicit her father for a bribe. She tells of her mother’s long illness, of turmoil and quarrels among family members. Some twenty years later, when Liu was a student in the American Midwest, memories of these people and places flooded back to haunt her. Responding to their call, Sophronia eventually returned to Hong Kong in 2006, to live near her native village and continue to write. She died on 14 January 2013, one day after her 60th birthday.

Sophronia Liu passed away one day after her sixtieth birthday, on 14 January 2013.

Her book, "A Shimmering Sea", is a JOINT-WINNER of  the Proverse Prize 2012, and was  published by Proverse on 11 April 2013.

As her publishers, we were working closely with her right up to her death to finalise her book for publication. We were very impressed that a person, so seriously ill, could put so much patient and efficient care into this work.

We have lost a talented writer and a sensitive human being, demonstrably able both to organise and to work with others to achieve a joint goal.

AVAILABILITY
Most Proverse Hong Kong titles can be seen and purchased at the Proverse page on the website of our Hong Kong based distributor, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press:  https://cup.cuhk.edu.hk/Proversehk
You can also find most titles on various amazon sites as well as those of other online retailers.


In Hong Kong, where she was born into the indigenous Liu Clan oftheNewTerritories, Sophronia was a member of both the Women in Publishing Society and the Hong Kong Writers' Circle. She has contributions in both the HKWIPS publication, "imprint" 11 ("Night at theTemple"), and the HKWC publication, "Measurements".

Although Sophronia spent many years in the USA, where she was active in the community and has many friends, she returned to her roots some years ago, to teach and write.