'Do you know what it was like here? You wouldn't believe the glamour. We had our own film studio, redbrick houses for the stars, even Jackie Chan. Now look at us - the Hollywood of the Orient will soon be gone altogether.'
1987, Hong Kong. Trying to outrun his demons, a young man who calls himself Buddha returns to the bustling place of his birth. He moves into a small Buddhist nunnery in the crumbling neighbourhood of Diamond Hill, where planes landing at the nearby airport fly so close overhead that travellers can see into the rooms of those below.
As Buddha begins to care for the nuns and their neighbours, this pocket of the old city is vanishing. Even the fiery Iron Nun cannot prevent the frequent landslides that threaten the nunnery she fights for, and in the nearby shanty town, a faded film actress who calls herself Audrey Hepburn is hiding a deep secret and trying to survive with her teenage daughter who has a bigger fish to fry.
But no one arrives in Diamond Hill by accident, and Buddha's ties to this place run deeper than he is willing to admit. Can he make peace with his past and survive in this disappearing city?
Beautifully written and utterly compelling, Diamond Hill is a gorgeous love letter that perfectly captures a lost place, filled with unforgettable characters. If you love books by Hanya Yanagihara, Colm Toibin and Ocean Vuong, you'll adore this haunting and evocative novel.
About the Author
Kit Fan is a novelist, poet and critic. He was born in Hong Kong and moved to the UK at the age of 21. His second poetry collection, As Slow As Possible was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and one of the Irish Times Books of the Year. He was shortlisted twice for the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, and a winner of the Northern Writers Award, Times Stephen Spender Poetry Translation Prize, inaugural HKU International Poetry Prize and POETRY's Editors Prize for Reviewing. Diamond Hill is his debut novel.
Industry Reviews
'A vivid, powerful portrait of a vanishing world'
David Nicholls author of One Day & Sweet Sorrow
'A rapid-fire debut with a cinematographer's eye for detail... Fan strikes a deft balance between agile set-pieces and lingering beauty.'
Naoise Dolan
'A vivid, powerful portrait of a vanishing world.'
David Nicholls
'The best debut I've read in ages... A glorious luminosity to the writing and the reading experience is rather like looking into a kaleidoscope and giving it several twirls.'
Cathy Rentzenbrink
'A gripping and highly accomplished debut... A thoroughly enjoyable and profound exploration of powerlessness, identity and the evolution of a city.'
Guardian
'Fan is an exuberant chronicler of a lost time and place... It's a timely consideration of Hong Kong's recent past.'
The Times
'An exhilarating and original tale, Diamond Hill marks award-winning Fan as a writer to watch.'
Cosmopolitan
'Fan creates a textured, unsettled portrait of a territory facing a decisive ending... The dark drama that unfolds is an elegy to that vanished vanishing world.'
The Wall Street Journal
