I finished 筷：怪談競演奇物語, and it was a real gem! It’s a collection of short stories by five different authors.

Shinzo Mitsuda (三津田信三) for Japan, Xerses (薛西斯) for Taiwan and JeTauZi (夜透紫) for Hong Kong each create a different urban legend related to chopsticks, from rituals that grant a wish to rituals that put a curse on someone, they are all different and inspired by the local culture.

Then Xiao Xiang Shen ( 瀟湘神) (Tw) writes a story that links the first and the second stories together, and Chan Ho Kei (陳浩基) (HK) writes the final story that links the third and fourth stories together, making the collection a very cohesive whole. Even though each story is independent, the last two ones show that everything was linked! It’s really mind-blowing, I’ve never read anything like this before.

As for the short stories themselves, I liked them more or less (favourite ones are the ones by JeTauZi and Xiao Xiang Shen), but the collection as a whole is really exceptional.

#HongKongLiterature #TaiwaneseLiterature #JapaneseLiterature