Chinese-Canadian writer Evelyn Lau is in Britain to promote her fifth book Other Women (Minerva £6.99) - an impressive track record for a 24-year- old whose career history includes a spell as a street prostitute. Lau ran away from home aged fourteen, in part because her parents had forbidden her from writing. ‘For them, spendlng so much time alone in my room was very threatening,’ she says. Two years on the streets of Vancouver provided the inspiration for her first book litinaway: Diary of a Street Kid which became a bestseller in Canada. Both Runaway and the short story collection which followed Fresh Girls dealt with marginalised women. ‘People were beginning to question if I could do anything else,’ says Lau. Proving otherwise, the central character in her first novel Other Women has a settled, comfortable life. Lau once said that selling sex was ‘comparable to housework’ and more tolerable than her life at home. To many young writers, this refusal to conform is an inspiration: ‘lhey’re encouraged that I’m able to make a living - that you don’t have to be 60 to even get published.’ (Catriona Smith)
Evelyn Lau will be reading from Other Women at Bast/emillr Library as part of the Castlemilk Writers Festival on 27 Sept at 7.30pm.
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The Parthanon on Calton llill continues to hold a fascination for Scottish artists. As part of Fotofeis Edinburgh, installation specialist Jane Brettle aims to ‘physically intervene within architecture’ by hanging five metallic banners between the columns, as this computer simulation shows.
Visiting the UK for the first time 5. e - w m- ?” rr r since Nelson Mandela‘s release. 'i ~ , "f”,’727”% Junction Avenue Theatre Company c " offer the chance to catch their post- apartheid production of Marabi about the vibrant musical resistance which flourished in Johannesburg‘s slums in the 20s. The country may be looking forward with a sense of optimism. but Junction Avenue is determined to keep a sense of history alive.
Mumbi is at the K in g '5 Theatre. Edinburgh until Sal 23 Sept.
Quentin Tarantino‘s status as the cult director with the Midas touch has enabled him to secure the distribution of foreign films which would probably struggle for a mainstream release. And so it is with Chung/ring Express. the first release on Tarantino‘s own video label. a Hong Kong police movie, which despite the gun-toting blonde. is not the John Woo-style shoot out you might expect. See preview.
2 The List 22 Sept-5 Oct 1995