Lake Like a Mirror at The Ruby SF: Ho Sok Fong and Natascha Bruce in conversation with Meng Jin

Celebrate the release of Ho Sok Fong’s Lake Like a Mirror, translated by Natascha Bruce, at The Ruby SF, an arts and letters-focused work and gathering space for creative Bay Area women of all definitions. Ho Sok Fong and Natascha Bruce will be in conversation with writer Meng Jin.

By an author described by critics as “the most accomplished Malaysian writer, full stop,” Lake Like a Mirror is a scintillating exploration of the lives of women buffeted by powers beyond their control. Squeezing themselves between the gaps of rabid urbanization, patriarchal structures and a theocratic government, these women find their lives twisted in disturbing ways.

In precise and disquieting prose, Ho Sok Fong draws her readers into a richly atmospheric world of naked sleepwalkers in a rehabilitation center for wayward Muslims, mysterious wooden boxes, gossip in unlicensed hair salons, hotels with amnesiac guests, and poetry classes with accidentally charged politics—a world that is peopled with the ghosts of unsaid words, unmanaged desires and uncertain statuses, surreal and utterly true.

Light reception at 6:00. Conversation begins at 6:30.