"A Woman's Story"

in Becoming Feminists: An Anthology of How We Became Feminists

2011

Resources for Feminist Research and Centre for Women's Studies in Education,  OISE, University of Toronto.

"The Handwriting Expert"

in Henry Chow

2009

Chosen by Ricepaper magazine and the Asian Canadian Writers' Collective, these stories by emerging and established writers such as Evelyn Lau and Governor General Award winner Paul Yee reflect the experiences and sentiments of North-American Asian teenagers.

Visit the Tradewind Books website.

Fiction: Tradewind Books.

The Last Dragon Dance

2008

"'Kwai-Yun Li’s debut collection . . . about being Chinese in 1950s India, proves her a natural story-teller’—Tehelka

On a hot summer day in 1942, sitting outside her shoe shop in Bentinck Street, a mother fixes her six-year-old daughter’s marriage to her neighbour’s son. A widow converts a part of her house to a temple so that she can support her family with the donations. During a border skirmish in the north-east, Chinese mothers prepare packages for life in concentration camps giving special instructions to the children, lest they get separated. A gentle bookseller and his daughter disappear in the middle of the night when they are deported to China for his political sympathies. And in the delightful story ‘Uncle Worry’, Uncle Chien worries when his daughter Pi Moi forgets to call him: he worries that she and her husband, Mohamed, have had a falling out. He worries when Pi Moi does call, for she must be fighting with Mohamed, otherwise why would she call? From crumbling shops in Chinatown to decaying tanneries in Tangra, Kwai-Yun Li’s The Last Dragon Dance: Chinatown Stories, exposes us to the life of the little-known Chinese community in Calcutta.

While the arrival of the Chinese in India abounds in legends, the mass exodus of this dwindling community is not as romantic: political and economic upheavals have forced them to abandon their home. Even though theirs is so much a story of assimilation and syncretism—growing up in 1950s’ Calcutta one never paid much attention to which customs were Indian or Chinese—the Chinese have often felt the brunt of their foreignness. The rift between Mao and Chiang Kai Shek led to the deportment and imprisonment of hundreds of Maoist sympathizers. This collection gives voice to such concerns without being overtly sentimental or sensational; Li never fails to see the humour in the idiosyncrasies of her community. These inspired-from-life stories wonderfully capture the mood of the time with unassuming grace." ---From the Penguin Books India website

Fiction. New Delhi: Penguin Books.

Available online at the Penguin Books India website.

Available for sale under the title The Last Dragon Dance in the Indian Subcontinent and Singapore only.

This same collection is published by TSAR Publications as The Palm Leaf Fan.

The Palm Leaf Fan

2006

From crumbling shops in Chinatown to decaying tanneries in Tangra, this collection of short stories expose us to the sights, sounds, and smells of a marginalized community in post-colonial Calcutta.

We meander into Wong’s Shoe Shop, where a mother arranges a marriage for her six year old daughter. We stop at a school for girls, where the principal singles out students who have large breasts for punishment. We pause by a temple guarded by a billy goat where family drama rages. We rally with politicians while monsoon rain drenches us. We relax under waving palms while the setting sun shimmers over the surface of Tangra fish ponds.

The Palm Leaf Fan's sensitivity and quirky sense of humour will keep you wanting to return to the ghetto, again and again.

On the reading lists for three classes at U of T at Mississauga, York University and Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

Fiction. Toronto: TSAR Publications.

Read an excerpt from "The Fish Pond."

All TSAR publications are available online.

In the Indian Subcontinent and Singapore this same collection is published by Penguin Books under the title: The Last Dragon Dance.

A Kiss Beside the Monkey Bars

2004

A collection by four new writers show what makes Toronto the city it has become.

Sultan Ameerali, born in Toronto to Sri Lankan parents, chronicles the hilarious and shocking absurdities of the "brown man" making do in white Canada through bottom feeder jobs and heartless relationships.

Jennifer Lee, produces wry, low-key tales about living across cultural boundaries, first in southern Ontario, then during a year in China, her parents' homeland.

Kwai Li, takes us to the tiny marginalized community of Chinese in Tangra, a suburb of post-colonial Calcutta, where as a six-year-old she stood watch for the cops as her mother turned a tannery by day into a moonshine operation by night.

Rosa Veltri, the daughter of Italian-born parents in Toronto's west end, writes sparkling and heartbreaking stories of immigrants who struggle for dignity in a hellish suburban fruit market.

Currently used as a text for two third-year writing courses at the University of Toronto at Mississauga.

Sultan Ameerli et al.
Creative non-fiction. Toronto: Life Rattle Press.

All Life Rattle publications are available online.

“Recording”

In The Totally Unknown Writers’ Festival 2005: A Celebration of Arnie

2005

Arnie Achtman…writer, teacher, actor, broadcaster, performance artist, friend, son, brother, lover, musician, mentor, loner…the matron of routine, the comic, stabilizer, neutralizer, the easiest to talk to–the hardest to really piss off.
“My favourite place in the whole world—Arnie’s arms. Safe.”
Congas…he made the congas sing. He could find the deepest pocket in a groove.

Arnie Achtman et al.
Creative non-fiction. Toronto: Life Rattle Press.

All Life Rattle publications are available online.

“Howrah Station”

in Will You Still Love Me If I Shave My Head?

2003

Creative Non-fiction: Guy Allen, ed.,
Toronto: Life Rattle Press.

Out of print

"The Fish"

2000

Broadcast on CBC Radio.