Paper Kingdom and Other Stories consists of a novella and three short
stories. All are set in Mozambique during the 1950s and 60s, when the
country was in the final decades of Portuguese colonialism. Paper
Kingdom follows the life of a young Chinese girl, Estrela, from girlhood
through to adulthood, her relationship with her siblings and parents,
and her growing need to break free from the expectations placed upon
her. The novella ends with her reconciled to the new Mozambique emerging
from the effects of colonial rule. Paper Kingdom is followed by three
stories, each of which, focuses on the attempts of Chinese women and
girls to kick against the restrictions of traditional patriarchy and
family pressures requiring them to conform. Some of them are stuck in
abusive relationships, often stemming from arranged marriages, and seek
to find paths to freedom in desperate, and often misguided ways. The
contradictions of colonialism, and these characters' interaction with
the colonial regime, form a backdrop to the stories: the Chinese in
colonial Africa, like other Asian groups, were a buffer between the
European ruling minority, and the Black African majority. Their
relationship with both colonizer and colonized is hinted at through
episodes of racial prejudice and hostility of which they are both
victims and perpetrators, thus contradicting the colonial power's
rhetoric of racial integration and inclusivity. But the emphasis in all
these tales is on the inner lives and memories of these diasporic
Chinese families, and the community to which they belonged. Within this
community, traditional Chinese beliefs and superstitions are maintained,
occasionally adapting to and interacting with local African belief
systems, thus providing the poetic underlay of the stories, with
elements of magical realism. The collection also shows that this
community is riven by family animosities and jealousy, social
difference, all of which threaten its coherence as its very future in
Mozambique is placed in doubt with the end of Portuguese rule.
