Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9781558613188
Publication Date: 6-11-2024

Translated by Jennifer Feeley

Tongueless follows two rival teachers at a secondary school in Hong Kong who are instructed to switch from teaching in Cantonese to Mandarin—or lose their jobs. Apolitical and focusing on surviving and thriving in their professional environment, Wai and Ling each approach the challenge differently. Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning; Ling, knowing how to please her superiors and colleagues, thinks she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge by deploying her social savviness. Wai eventually crumples under the pressure and dies by suicide, leaving her colleague Ling to face seismic political and cultural change alone as she considers how far she will go to survive such a ruthlessly competitive work environment.

Sharp, darkly humorous, and politically pointed, Tongueless presciently engages with important issues facing Hong Kong today during which so much of the city’s uniqueness—especially its language—is at risk of being erased.

Winner of the 2024 PEN Translates Award

“A taut, chilling novel about the weaponization of language as a tool of oppression.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Tongueless shocked me as much as any masterpiece I have ever read.” —Chan Ho-Kei, author of The Borrowed

“Tongueless is a riveting horror novel that explores the psychic depths of two desperate secondary school teachers struggling to navigate a merciless society. Set against the backdrop of post-1997 Hong Kong, amid shifting social norms and language politics, Lau’s striking debut novel compels readers to confront the voices of dissent that have been polished into excessively smooth, mirror-like surfaces. In Feeley’s brilliant translation, Hong Kong’s cultural and linguistic nuances are vividly brought to the fore.” —Dorothy Tse, author of Owlish

“With fervor and aptitude, Tongueless portrays characters that are guileful and defenseless, repressed and vigorous. No matter what happens, they hold together both themselves and a world that is being wrenched apart by multiple forces. An enthralling novel.” —Yan Ge, author of Strange Beasts of China

“Darkly gleaming with claustrophobic terror and pitch-black humor, Tongueless picks away at the surface of Hong Kong to reveal the festering tensions that lie beneath, and skillfully depicts the relentless pressures that ordinary Hong Kongers come under.” —Jeremy Tiang, translator of Rouge Street: Three Novellas

“A manifesto of language and morality. A psychological unraveling that reveals the ways we deceive ourselves and others. Tongueless is a slow-burn social horror that deftly captures the way human cruelty always returns to destroy its originator.” —Molly McGhee, author of Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind

“Insightful and investigative, Lau Yee-Wa explores the searing politics of a threatened tongue in Hong Kong with tact, terror, and empathy. She evokes a dangerously competitive world fueled by success, shopping, inflation of housing prices, educational hierarchy, and social status. It’s a timely portrayal of a city that has experienced a seismic shock and is grappling with the consequences of irreversible change.” —Kit Fan, author of Diamond Hill