Ysabelle Cheung is no stranger to writing. Before co-founding Hong Kong contemporary art gallery Property Holdings Development (PHD) Group in 2021, Cheung worked as a journalist for her entire career.
“The day after I turned 30, I quit my job at the magazine,” says British-born, Hong Kong-based Cheung. “I had an early midlife crisis where I realised I’d been ignoring a part of me that was very important.”
After stepping down as managing editor of Hong Kong-based magazine ArtAsiaPacific in 2019, Cheung returned to her first love: fiction. Now balancing her career as an author and gallery owner, she is set to release her debut short story collection, Patchwork Dolls, with independent publisher Blair on February 10.
Set in Hong Kong and America, Patchwork Dolls is a collection …
Ysabelle Cheung is no stranger to writing. Before co-founding Hong Kong contemporary art gallery Property Holdings Development (PHD) Group in 2021, Cheung worked as a journalist for her entire career.
“The day after I turned 30, I quit my job at the magazine,” says British-born, Hong Kong-based Cheung. “I had an early midlife crisis where I realised I’d been ignoring a part of me that was very important.”
After stepping down as managing editor of Hong Kong-based magazine ArtAsiaPacific in 2019, Cheung returned to her first love: fiction. Now balancing her career as an author and gallery owner, she is set to release her debut short story collection, Patchwork Dolls, with independent publisher Blair on February 10.
Set in Hong Kong and America, Patchwork Dolls is a collection of 10 short stories in English with speculative-fiction influences that navigate the eerie space between disappearance and reappearance.
Many of the stories are tinged by the unease of the Covid-19 pandemic, asking what it means to be an Asian woman living under the relentless gaze of the state and the machine.
Cheung had no concrete plan when she quit her job, but she knew she wanted to explore slowing down. Journalism’s fast pace was at odds with Cheung’s convictions, and her “editor’s eye” – once a professional asset – had turned inward, leading to constant self-correction.