Peter Ho Davies Meet the Author

Migration is the troubled story of our time. The lot of the incomer,

the resentment of those who think their countries are changing maybe

too fast, we know how difficult the politics has become. This his new

book The Fortunes the author Peter Ho Davies teaching in the US these

days, traces the story of Chinese immigrants to America, from the

Civil War in the 1860s, to the present day, when a couple go to

China, to adopt a daughter. They call her Pearl. It was from the

river the first immigrant we meet in the book had come. It is a sorry

that continues across the centuries. Welcome.

-- story. Peter, the story begins with a

character who is one of the Chinese workers who helps to build the

railroad that was opening the west and the picture you paint is of an

Americana is not just expanding very fast, but beginning to find itself,

beginning to work out what kind of country it is going to be. It is a

fascinating moment. Particularly in the bank of the Civil War, which is

threatening to tear the country apart, now after that north south

divide we are thinking about joining east and west it feels like America

is be beginning to come together rebind hits and the character plays

an important role. He is the inspiration to the man building the

railroad to hire tens of thousands of Chinese to work on the railroad

so they knit the country back together. He was a real figure He is

mentioned briefly, he is mentioned in biographies of Congresser, they

are admiring Crocker, and nothing is said of his Manser vant who inspired

him to believe that Chinese are strong enough to help bill this

amazing project. In term lves of his identity it is fascinating he is

half white. He doesn't want to admit to Crocker, he feels that might

undermine his status as a Chinese person, which is a lovely beginning

to the story We are used to thinking of the Chinese in problematic ways

as the model minority in the US and the man is the original model

Chinese. Crocker thinks based on this man's example I can trust the

others to build my railroad, that feel like a point of pride for

Arling but a point of remorse and a burden to be that representative.

The story, arches through 150 years approximately to our own time. There

are three historical figure, the second is a film star. And she says

at one point, that she feels on the screen, that she is an American for

the first time. She can't feel it sitting in a theatre watching a

movie, it is only if she is in it, it is only in an artificial sense in

which she can be America. Yes, she feels embraced because suddenly the

way she looks are embraced by Hollywood, that is her calling card,

it is what makes her famous. Somebody describes her as having

porcelain pulcritude For what has been a liable to her becomes an

advantage and makes her famous, in the US but problematic when she

returns to China where the Chinese sees the roles she has played.

Nowhere in the story is it easy. The third character Vincent killed in

Detroit because people think he is Japanese, he suffers a terrible, you

know violent death. All these characters, they are coping with the

myriad problems that come with being the other. I think the other, but I

think one of the things they struggle with is they are the other

two, the host nation to America but they are somehow the other to the

places they came from, so Arling is Eurasian, and nan May she is looked

at in ways thats a scans. Scans. Vincent is in some ways an aspiring

all American in his own right, so it feels as though they are caught

between two cultures, accepted by neither, either side of the divies.

You are half Welsh, half Chinese so it is territory that you are bound

to explore, isn't it? I think so, I mean, I think this is certainly true

of my biography in the way you describe me, I feel divided, I have

lived half my life in the United States for instance, all writers

have something of this. We live half lives, the life of the time spent

behind the desk in the imagination and the rest of the life, with other

people, with. Fa, with friends in work situation, so there is often a

sense of us switching identities, code switches in some way. I used to

feel caught between Chineseness or Welshness, Britishness and

Americanness, that feeling when I thought about the two halves I was

obliged to choose. Am I loyal to the place live or the place came from,

am I loyal to one culture or another. Why does it matter? It

matters because if we choose one, the other side can feel we have

betrayed them. The accusation is one of inauthenticity, we think of that

in regard to Chineseness, in terms of Chinese food in certain ways.

When Pearl grows up in America, so years after Arling came to work on

the railroad, is it likely that her life will be easier in reconciling

these identifies, -- identities or will it be the same struggle the

same balance? Well, I would hope, for the sake of my son and good

daughter who is adopted from China, they will be able to make choice, I

think a lot of the time our identities are impoetsed on us by

others. We can -- conform to ways we are seen or struggle with it. I

would like to suggester I would like to hope, it may be an opt mystic

hope they can choose some of the senses of identity. When the

questions of migration and assimilation get to the top of the

political agenda as they are in this Presidential election in the United

States, it is a sensitive and maybe dangerous moment. It is. This is a

troubling time for us to think about. But it feels as though it is

shaped by a kind of narrowness of thought which says you have to be

one thing or another, if we could imagine a space in which people

could be more than one thing and still be authentic and reliable and

trustworthy in that space, I think we would be in a healthier place. We

could be Europe and British. It is easy also to understand the alarm,

the fear, of a community which is perhaps beaten down, losing its

economic power, and watching itself change, for reasons which come from

beyond and change as a pace that community finds uncomfortable. That

fear is something we can all recognise and to some degree

sympathise with even if it has nasty components with. One of the ways

that fear manifests itself is we assure ourselves of certain

strengths by excluding the other, that feels as though it is cutting

off or distancing ourself from potential of our society. We talk

about it a great deal, probably more than we used to, is that a healthy

thing? I think so. I think when those conversations are sub vainian

or unacknowledged or unspoken, then something is unacknowledged, right,

some truth goes unsaid. You know, I think the writer's role is o speak

the unspeakable. To bring forth the things unis said. Thank you very

much. -- unsaid.

Once again big contrasts with the weather in the UK, this is what we

saw in some arts of the south-east of England. A good deal of sunshine,