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Fiona Cheong
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The Scent of the Gods Paperback – December 13, 2010

by Fiona Cheong (Author), Leslie Bow (Editor)
3.7 out of 5 stars 7 ratings
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The Scent of the Gods tells the enchanting, haunting story of a young girl's coming of age in Singapore during the tumultuous years of its formation as a nation. Eleven-year-old Su Yen bears witness to the secretive lives of "grown-ups" in her diasporic Chinese family and to the veiled threats in Southeast Asia during the Cold War years. From a child's limited perspective, the novel depicts the emerging awareness of sexuality in both its beauty and its consequences, especially for women. In the context of postcolonial politics, Fiona Cheong skillfully parallels the uncertainties of adolescence with the growing paranoia of a population kept on alert to communist infiltration. In luminous prose, the novel raises timely questions about safety, protection, and democracy--and what one has to give up to achieve them.

 

Ideal for students and scholars of Asian American and transnational literature, postcolonial history, women's studies, and many other interconnected disciplines, this special edition of The Scent of the Gods includes a contextualizing introduction, a chronology of historical events covered in the novel, and explanatory notes.
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  1. Print length
    261 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    University of Illinois Press
  4. Publication date
    December 13, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    8.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0252076427
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0252076428
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Editorial Reviews

Review


"Charged and poetic. . . . A story exquisitely poised between the specific and the mythic, delicately narrated and profoundly resonant."--Publishers Weekly



"Richly layered. . . . Cheong evokes not only the political friction [of Singapore] but also a family history built from equal parts of mythology, tradition, and rebellion."--Kirkus Reviews


"Told with marvelous sensitivity, insight, and compassion. . . . An evocation of the mystery and strangeness of human existence."--James McConkey

About the Author


Fiona Cheong is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of the novel Shadow Theatre.Leslie Bow is a professor of English and Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of Partly Colored: Asian Americans and Racial Anomaly in the Segregated South.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Illinois Press; First Edition (December 13, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 261 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0252076427
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0252076428
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.02 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

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  1. Fiona Cheong

    Fiona Cheong

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  2. Leslie Bow

    Leslie Bow

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    Leslie Bow is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of English and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A fourth generation Chinese American from the Bay Area, she earned a PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of the award-winning, ‘Partly Colored’: Asian Americans and Racial Anomaly in the Segregated South (New York University Press, 2010); Betrayal and Other Acts of Subversion: Feminism, Sexual Politics, Asian American Women's Literature (Princeton University Press, 2001) She is the editor of Asian American Feminisms (Routledge, 2012); a scholarly edition of Fiona Cheong’s novel, The Scent of the Gods (Illinois University Press, 2010); and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Twentieth-Century American Literature (2022).

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3.7 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Lyell Wilson
    3.0 out of 5 stars Scent of the Gods
    Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I found the writing of Fiona Cheong, a bit drawn out in this book. I kept waiting for something to happen in the book but got lots of descriptions of the environment outside the house. The descriptions of the sounds, sights and smells by Su Yen did not do it for me. As a regular visitor to Singapore since the mis 1990s, the descriptions of the smells of the Island did not seem to fit with my experience. Maybe it was different in the time period the book was set in.
    The other thing that I found missing was the strength of family ties between members in the family. In the book people seemed to come in and out of the narrative with no real strength of connection between them. The people of Singapore that I have known and know have strong family ties.
    Maybe I need to read more about Singapore during the time period that the book was set in.
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  • Hsiaoshuang
    2.0 out of 5 stars Meandering narrative that becomes tiresome
    Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2015
    The reviewer Wilson expresses exactly my feeling about the book - drawn out. I was stringed along with the promise of something about to happen, but all I read was a meandering description of jumbled up subjects, as the author jumps from Japanese occupation to coolies, to Malacca to grandpa's spirit returning to his house on the 7th day of his death..

    The short story on Page 2 told by the grandma about children playing hide and seek and how a boy disappeared because he answered the devils that called him (just a single text chunk) is the only interesting part of the book. I was born in 1951 and was a teenager in 1960s Singapore that was the setting of the novel. I too grew up with lots of siblings and cousins and adult relatives, presided over by my Granny in Chinatown. What I remember of my growing up years from the 1950s to 1970s are different from what the author wrote.
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