| Summary Note |
The dreamer boy travelling on dragon hide ... a tiger running alone in the night ... Mimi Kwa ignored the letter for days. When she finally opened it, the news was so shocking her hair turned grey. What kind of father sues his own daughter? This most recent collision was over the estate of Mimi's beloved Aunt Theresa, but its seed had been sown long ago. In an attempt to understand how it had come to this, Mimi unspools her rich family history in House of Kwa. Her father was one of a wealthy silk merchant's 32 children, and just a little boy when the Kwa family became caught up in the brutal and devastating Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. Years later, he was sent to study in Australia by his now independent and successful older sister Theresa. There he met and married Mimi's mother, a 19-year-old with an undiagnosed, chronic mental illness. Tiger Mimi arrived soon after, and her struggle with her father, dragon Francis, began ... Riveting, colourful and often darkly humorous, House of Kwa is an epic family drama spanning four generations, and an unforgettable story about how one woman finds the courage to stand up to a lifetime of bullying and prejudice. By confronting her father, Mimi squares off against the infamous 'Kwa Madness' and finally puts the ghosts of the past to rest. Throughout, her inspiration is Francis's late older sister, the jet-setting, free-spirited Aunt Theresa, whose extraordinary life is a beacon of hope in the darkness. |
