Book Review: The Life of a Banana by P P Wong
The Life of a Banana is one of relatively few fictional stories about the British Chinese experience out there. Is it worth a read? Here’s my Life of a Banana book review.
The Life of a Banana Summary
Xing Li is what some Chinese people call a banana – yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Although born and raised in London, she never feels like she fits in.
When her mother dies, she moves with her older brother to live with venomous Grandma, strange Uncle Ho and Hollywood actress Auntie Mei. Her only friend is Jay – a mixed raced Jamaican boy with a passion for classical music.
Then Xing Li’s life takes an even harsher turn: the school bullying escalates and her uncle requests she assist him in an unthinkable favour. Her happy childhood becomes a distant memory as her new life is infiltrated with the harsh reality of being an ethnic minority.
Consumed by secrets, violence and confusing family relations, Xing Li tries to find hope wherever she can. In order to find her own identity, she must first discover what it means to be both Chinese and British.
The Life of Banana Review
The Life of a Banana tells the story of Xing Li, a British-born Chinese girl. The story begins with the tragic death of her mother, meaning Xing and her brother are forced to live with their super rich and super strict grandmother. They’ve never had much of a relationship with her and they’re dreading going to live with her and their aunt and uncle.
The siblings are both forced to attend good schools by their grandmother, who prioritises good grades above pretty much anything else. Xing finds that she doesn’t fit in at all at her new school. She’s bullied mercilessly by a girl named Shils, who picks on her name and race every day.
What starts as microaggressions become steadily worse, culminating in a truly awful incident that shocked me to read. This book seems particularly apt in wake of the Atlanta attacks which showed that racist “jokes” about Chinese people can actually lead to very serious consequences if this rampant racism goes unchecked.
This book does not only look outwards at the experience of a British born Chinese girl in a predominantly white society but also what it is like to be British born Chinese with a strict Chinese family.
Xing Li has an incredibly strained relationship with her grandmother and uncle which goes through numerous twists and turns throughout the book.
The feelings Xing struggles with and tries to reconcile between her Western values and her grandmother’s Chinese values is something I think a lot of British-born Asians understand to varying degrees.
The writing style is notable as the book is largely written from Xing Li’s perspective. As an 11-year-old girl, she writes in a rather childlike manner, commenting very bluntly on the things around her.
This allows for a lot of observational humour about Chinese culture to creep in, which is hilarious to me now as a mixed-race British Chinese woman.
This was, however, a little jarring at times as the narrative voice wasn’t consistent the whole way through. Most passages are from Xing’s perspective, obvious because of the misspellings of things she hears. But some are in the third person and in a much more adult voice. It was a little confusing at times.
Although the main character is a young girl, I wouldn’t necessarily say that this book is aimed at teens or young adults. Given the topics in question and how rare it is for such topics to be covered in British literature, I think this is a must-read for adults too.
NB. This book (unexpectedly for me) deals with a lot of dark and heavy topics. I don’t want to reveal spoilers but the following trigger warnings should be applied: death, violence, suicide.
Sometimes funny, sometimes dark, this story shines a light on the British-Chinese experience in a way that no books have before. It’s not flawless by any means but I think it is a really significant novel because of the story it tells and the characters it presents.
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It’s worth noting that P. P. Wong is the first British-born Chinese novelist to be offered a book deal in the UK. Given that this book was published in 2014, that’s pretty appalling to me. Despite the fact that The Life of a Banana was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2015, it doesn’t seem to be readily available in the UK today.
Amazon and Waterstones are the only stockists of new copies and the copy I purchased from Amazon is independently published by the author, rather than the publisher’s version.
This makes me quite sad, disappointed and angry. I see this as another important reminder to read diversely and actively seek out great titles by underrepresented authors whose works may not be given the attention they deserve. If we want more diverse stories to be published then we need to show the publishing industry that by ordering more of these titles.
My general search for British Chinese authors and literature has produced few results. There are nowhere near as many titles available in this category as there are for, say, Chinese American authors and literature.
I’m loving all the titles by ESEA authors being shared on Instagram these days, this is just a little reminder that some of the best will be ones by authors you’ve never heard of, with covers that aren’t attractive and that don’t have big marketing spend behind them.
Basically, read this book.
Buy The Life of a Banana Now
Amazon | Waterstones
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