For Today I Am a Boy

Last updated
First edition For Today I Am a Boy.jpg
First edition

For Today I Am a Boy is a novel written by Kim Fu, published in 2014 by HarperCollins. It follows the life of Audrey Huang, a young transgender Chinese child, throughout her childhood and adolescence in Fort Michel, Ontario, and adulthood and transformation in Montreal, Quebec. The novel is named after the Anohni and the Johnsons song of the same title.

Contents

Plot

A baby is born to the Chinese-Canadian Huangs in Fort Michel, Ontario; assigned male and the name Peter at birth.

Playing with her three sisters, Adele, Helen, and Bonnie, she understands early on that she is a girl and aspires to embody the femininity her sisters are easily allowed. She struggles in her relationship with her father, a dictatorial, patriarchal man who is committed to eradicating his family's Chinese heritage and shaping her into an "ideal Western man." [1] [2]

At age 18, Huang moves away from home and to Montreal, where she works in restaurants and leads a lonely life. She has affairs with two older women, the first an abusive mother of a casual friend, and the second a Christian evangelist trying to purge herself of lesbianism. [3]

The book ends with her joining her sisters in Germany, and her true name being revealed: Audrey.

Reception

For Today I Am a Boy received several accolades and critical praise. The book was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and winner of the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. It was also a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and was longlisted for Canada Reads . [4] The Globe and Mail praised Fu's depth of character development for minor characters, writing "Fu’s eye for the tribulations of the jocular bully, Chef, and other supporting characters is perhaps her greatest strength." [3] She also received praise for her care in telling the story of an immigrant family with a transgender child. The National Post writes, "In lesser hands, For Today I Am A Boy could easily veer into the didactic, a catalogue of Valuable Lessons and thinly veiled disdain for old ways of gender, of culture, of family. But it’s not. It’s just that everything is hard for everyone through the entire book, in a way that is somehow not exhausting but fascinating." [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fu Manchu</span> Fictional villain based on Asian stereotypes

Dr. Fu Manchu is a supervillain who was introduced in a series of novels by the English author Sax Rohmer beginning shortly before World War I and continuing for another forty years. The character featured in cinema, television, radio, comic strips and comic books for over 100 years, and he has also become an archetype of the evil criminal genius and mad scientist, while lending his name to the Fu Manchu moustache.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hua Mulan</span> Legendary Chinese folk heroine

Hua Mulan is a legendary Chinese folk heroine from the Northern and Southern dynasties era of Chinese history. Scholars generally consider Mulan to be a fictional character. Hua Mulan is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu by Jin Guliang.

<i>Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat</i> Childrens animated television series

Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, or simply Sagwa, is a children's animated television series based on the children's book of the same name by Amy Tan which aired on PBS Kids, co-produced by Canada-based animation studio CinéGroupe and Sesame Street creator Sesame Workshop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Raver</span> American actress (born 1969)

Kimberly Jayne Raver is an American actress. She is known for television roles such as Dr. Teddy Altman on ABC's medical drama Grey's Anatomy, Kim Zambrano on Third Watch, and Audrey Raines on 24.

<i>The Regulators</i> (novel) 1996 novel by Stephen King

The Regulators is a novel by American author Stephen King, writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was published in 1996 at the same time as its "mirror" novel, Desperation. The two novels represent parallel universes relative to one another, and most of the characters present in one novel's world also exist in the other novel's reality, albeit in different circumstances. Additionally, the US hardcover first editions of each novel, if set side by side, make a complete painting, and on the back of each cover is also a peek at the opposite's cover.

Sheila Leah Fischman is a Canadian translator who specializes in the translation of works of contemporary Quebec literature from French to English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huang Rong</span> Fictional character

Huang Rong is a fictional female protagonist in the wuxia novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong. She also appears as a supporting character in the sequel, The Return of the Condor Heroes.

Judith Clare Thompson, OC is a Canadian playwright. She has twice been awarded the Governor General's Award for drama, and is the recipient of many other awards including the Order of Canada, the Walter Carsen Performing Arts Award, the Toronto Arts Award, The Epilepsy Ontario Award, The B'nai B'rith Award, the Dora, the Chalmers, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, both for Palace of the End, which premiered at Canadian Stage, and has been produced all over the world in many languages. She has received honorary doctorates from Thorneloe University and, in November 2016, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

<i>I Not Stupid Too</i> 2006 Singaporean film directed by Jack Neo

I Not Stupid Too is a 2006 Singaporean satirical comedy film and the sequel to the 2002 film, I Not Stupid. A satirical comedy, I Not Stupid Too portrays the lives, struggles and adventures of three Singaporean youths—8-year-old Jerry, his 15-year-old brother Tom and their 15-year-old friend Chengcai—who have a strained relationship with their parents. The film explores the issue of poor parent-child communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madeleine Thien</span> Canadian short story writer and novelist

Madeleine Thien is a Canadian short story writer and novelist. The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature has considered her work as reflecting the increasingly trans-cultural nature of Canadian literature, exploring art, expression and politics inside Cambodia and China, as well as within diasporic East Asian communities. Thien's critically acclaimed novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, won the 2016 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards for Fiction. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, and the 2017 Rathbones Folio Prize. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages.

<i>The Kitchen Gods Wife</i> 1991 novel by Amy Tan

The Kitchen God's Wife is the second novel by Chinese-American author, Amy Tan. First published in 1991, it deals extensively with Chinese-American female identity and draws on the story of her mother's life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecil Castellucci</span> Canadian musician, American fiction writer

Cecil C. Castellucci, also known as Cecil Seaskull, is an American-born Canadian young adult novelist, indie rocker, and director. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

Kim Ryeo-ryeong is a South Korean writer.

Kim Katrin is a Canadian American writer, multidisciplinary artist, activist, consultant, and educator. She was formerly credited as Kim Crosby and Kim Katrin Milan. She speaks on panels and keynotes conferences nationally, and facilitates radical community dialogues. Her art, activism and writing has been recognized nationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Fu</span> Canadian writer

Kim Fu is a Canadian-born writer, living in Seattle, Washington. She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to immigrant parents from Hong Kong, Fu studied creative writing at the University of British Columbia.

I Am J is a young adult novel written by Cris Beam. It tells the story of 17-year-old transgender student J, who is transitioning during his senior year in high school in New York City, and struggles to find acceptance with his peers and his parents. Published in 2011 by Little, Brown, I Am J was a finalist for the 2012 Lambda Literary Award, in the Transgender Fiction category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender literature</span>

Transgender literature is a collective term used to designate the literary production that addresses, has been written by or portrays people of diverse gender identity.

<i>Adult Onset</i> 2014 novel by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Adult Onset is a 2014 novel by Canadian writer Ann-Marie MacDonald. Set in The Annex neighbourhood of Toronto, the story centers on one week in the life of a successful writer of young adult fiction, Mary Rose MacKinnon, who finds herself taking care of her two young children while her wife is out of town directing a play. The novel starts with a light tone in describing Mary Rose's new-found solo daily domesticity with her son and daughter. But through a series of flashbacks, "Mister" or "MR" as Mary Rose is known to family and friends, is forced to confront her own repressed abuse as a child. At the center of the family drama is her mother, Dolly, an immigrant child-wife in postwar Canada.

<i>Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars</i> 2016 novel by Kai Cheng Thom

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir is a 2016 Canadian book by Kai Cheng Thom. A surrealist novel, it follows an unnamed transgender woman protagonist who leaves home at a young age to live on the Street of Miracles—where various sex work takes place—with other "femmes". After one of them is killed, others form a gang and begin to attack men on the street.

Denison Avenue is a 2023 novel by written by Christina Wong and illustrated by Daniel Innes. Using mixed media, the novel follows Wong Cho Sum, an elderly Chinese-Canadian widow, as she navigates the rapidly changing Chinatown-Kensington district of Toronto, Ontario following her husband's sudden and unexpected death.

References

  1. 1 2 S. Bear Bergman (January 24, 2014). "For Today I Am A Boy, by Kim Fu: Review". National Post . Retrieved 2015-05-14.
  2. "Boy Trouble : 'For Today I Am a Boy,' by Kim Fu". The New York Times . January 31, 2014. Retrieved 2015-05-15.
  3. 1 2 Trilby Kent (January 31, 2014). "For Today I Am a Boy: A novel through the story of a transgender Chinese-Canadian child". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 2015-05-14.
  4. "Bio | Kim Fu, Writer". Kimfu.ca. Retrieved 2015-05-14.