Pan Macmillan

Emma Chen’s Emperor Can Wait features on Mail & Guardian books editor Darryl Accone’s list of the top “walls, wars, food and games” reads that 2009 brought us – the only SA book to make the cut. Congratulations to Chen!

I must disclose immediately that I am a friend of Emma’s. It would be remiss, however, not to acknowledge her book. The global hit Sophie’s World by Jostein Garder was described as “The detective novel that thinks it’s a philosophy book”, a formulation that could have been reversed. Emperor Can Wait is a memoir punctuated with anecdotes about food and recipes to accompany those.

Most media coverage has focused on the recipes, but to use the Sophie’s World formulation: “Emperor Can Wait is a recipe book that knows it’s a memoir.” It knows that it is about family, friends and food; about life, love and literature; about where home and the heart are to be found.

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Book details

• Emperor Can Wait by Emma Chen
  EAN: 9781770101678
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Joburg connoisseurs of Chinese cuisine have long frequented the Red Chamber, Emma Chen’s restaurant in Hyde Park. You might say it’s a bit of an institution. Chen’s recently added to the bliss with the publication of her beautiful memoir-plus-recipes, Emperor Can Wait. In a fashion reminiscent of Marcel Proust and his madeleine, food envokes powerful memories for Chen, which are beautifully captured in her book. Here, wine writer Neil Pendock appreciates both writer and book:

If the past is another country, the East is a whole new continent. As Johannesburg restaurateur the Red Chamber in Hyde Park Emma Chen notes in her beautiful memoir Emperor can Wait Picador Africa, 2009 “clams taste like I imagined the Sea Dragon Princess’s tears would taste like. Subtle and concentrated, each drop carried as much sea freshness as the whole sea.”

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Book details

• Emperor Can Wait by Emma Chen
  EAN: 9781770101678
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

The Red Chamber is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Hilary Biller spoke to owner Emma Chen about the milestone and the launch of her first book, Emperor Can Wait
 
You started your restaurant when the average South African’s idea of Chinese food was a Cantonese take-out, deep-fried and dripping in sweet-and-sour sauce. How difficult has it been to educate our palates about real Chinese food?

It has been a gradual process. I do get Chinese people criticising me for not serving authentic things like whole chicken, chicken feet and tripe. I’m not here to shock people but to slowly introduce authentic Chinese food to the customers’ palates.

In the beginning, we had the standard Chinese set menu, now hardly ever.

• Complete article in the Sunday Times

Book details

• Emperor Can Wait by Emma Chen
  EAN: 9781770101678
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Macmillan is proud and excited to announce that Conversations with Myself, the selected letters and diaries of Nelson Mandela, has been added to our non-fiction list.

This major new work covering almost the complete span of Madiba’s life will be published with the assistance and support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

The book dominated the recent Frankfurt Book Fair and its publication is set to be a worldwide event.

Madiba was recently the subject of an elegantly-written profile in the New York Times:

The icon is a very old man now. His hair is white, his body frail. Visitors say Nelson Mandela leans heavily on a cane when he walks into his study. He slips off his shoes, lowers himself into a stiff-backed chair and lifts each leg onto a cushioned stool. His wife, Graça, adjusts his feet “so they’re symmetrical, and gives him a peck,” says George Bizos, his old friend and lawyer.

To Mr. Mandela’s left is a small table piled with newspapers in English and Afrikaans, the language of the whites who imprisoned him for 27 years. Family and old comrades sit to his right, where his hearing is better. His memory has weakened, but he still loves to reminisce, bringing out oft-told stories “like polished stones,” as one visitor put it.

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For more information on Conversations with Myself, please see the flyer above. We can’t wait to bring the book to you next year!

Photo courtesy the New York Times

Restauranteur Emma Chen’s memoir, Emperor Can Wait, was launched last week in Johannesburg. Here’s an excerpt from the book that takes us back to Taiwan:

Beer houses became popular in Taiwan around the time I started at university in the late 1970s. They sprang up like bamboo shoots after the spring rain. Simple wooden structures with canvas awnings gave them an informal feel; during the day, they probably looked shabby.

All the beer houses I knew were decorated with Christmas-tree lights: they were everywhere — around the wooden balustrades, the pillars and even the roof trusses. These hundreds of little lights didn’t illuminate the beer houses, but they did provide an exotic and festive atmosphere.

Their business started at dusk and ended at dawn and my college friends and I would meet up for dinner there. The beer came in full-size bottles, much like wine bottles, and was served in basic cold drink glasses.

• Complete article in the Mail & Guardian

Book details

• Emperor Can Wait by Emma Chen
  EAN: 9781770101678
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Emperor Can Wait… but not Emma Chen’s fans! The popular restaurateur and owner of the Red Chamber restaurant in the Hyde Park Shopping Centre in Joburg was inundated with book signing requests before her book launch even began on Tuesday, 3 November.

The launch was held at the mall’s Exclusive Books branch, literally “just around the corner” from Chen’s famous restaurant. Guests were treated to divinely delicious Chinese food and tea. Arts critic and academic Darryl Accone, the featured speaker, began by saying, “We come not to eat Emma’s food and drink in her words – but to praise them”.

Always eloquent, Accone spoke about how “Memoirs about food, family and homeland allow privileged glimpses into other cultures”. He called Chen “A citizen of the republic of letters, a vizier in the empire of grand cuisine” and praised her Red Chamber restaurant as a “home from home for many long-term patrons – a place of family, a community dedicated to excellence and humanism”.

Describing Emperor Can Wait Accone said, “It’s a memoir that knows it’s about family, friends and food, about life, love and literature, about where home and the heart are to be found”. He praised Chen for a “writer’s keen engagement with all the senses” in her book.

Sharing the Chinese greeting, “Have you eaten yet?” with the guests, Accone said the book captures the “centrality of food and social relations” in Chinese daily life. Telling of Chen’s childhood in the Republic of China in Taiwan, he recognised that, “Food carries with it the power of the old country”. For Emma Chen’s book he said, “Read it, buy it, treasure it”. He then invited Chen to step up to the mic to talk about her reasons for writing the book.

Chen immediately acknowledged Accone’s role in introducing her to her writing group and jokingly reminisced about his not-so-endearing previous role as a food critic!

She said once she started writing, she realised she “could not write anything else but my own childhood”. Speaking about her cultural heritage, she said, “The Chinese are a very reserved people, it is only through food that you feel you are being taken care of”. She added, “I think I wrote the book for myself… The process of writing made me feel that I didn’t lose my home”. And she laughed: “Everything in it is true!”
.
With a wink and a smile she invited guests to listen to her read from a chapter of Emperor Can Wait, titled with a Chinese swear word that might translate as “Jou ma se…”. The chapter told of a young Emma’s adventure out on a boat with a young boy. Her reading beautifully evoked her feistiness of spirit – a well-known part of the dynamic woman of today.

Emperor Can Wait promises to be a delectable read and includes Chen’s own recipes for her famous food at the end of each chapter.

Gallery

Book details

• Emperor Can Wait by Emma Chen
  EAN: 9781770101678
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Join Exclusive Books and Pan Macmillan at the launch of well known Johannesburg restaurateur Emma Chen’s book, Emperor can Wait. Emma will discuss her life in Taiwan prior to relocating to South Africa.

Event Details

• Date: Tuesday, 03 November 2009
• Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
• Venue: Exclusive Books, Hyde Park, Shop U30, Hyde Park Corner
  Jan Smuts Avenue
  Craighall, Johannesburg | Map
• RSVP: hydepark@exclusivebooks.co.za, 011 325 4298

About the book

In Emperor can Wait, well known Johannesburg restaurateur Emma Chen delicately prepares and serves up reminiscences of her fascinating childhood in the newly formed Republic of China in Taiwan and of her early adulthood in both Taiwan and South Africa. Emma’s evocative reflections are framed by the exodus of the Kuomintang from Mao Zedong’s communist China, and resonate with the popular Chinese saying ‘Emperor can wait – while we eat’, which captures the importance of food. The sights, sounds, smells and characters come alive through short vignettes that each centre on a traditional Chinese meal and it’s meaning to family and friends. Recipes for Emma’s renowned dishes are provided at the end of each chapter for those readers who would like to try their hand at preparing them.

Book Details

• Emperor Can Wait by Emma Chen
  EAN: 9781770101678
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

‘Emperor can wait – while we eat’ is a popular Chinese proverb that captures the importance of food. I heard it often as a child growing up in a military camp in Taiwan.

The men were young soldiers who’d just lost the war and, along with it, their homeland to the Communists, and had had to flee to Taiwan. Their wives, too, suddenly found themselves in a crowded military setting, barely able to make ends meet.

Patriotic slogans could be seen everywhere during those times. The most popular was 反攻大陸, ‘Fight back to Mainland’ – everyone believed that Taiwan was only a temporary base and that we would return to our real home, Mainland China.

But we talked about food more than anything else.

– Preface, Emperor can Wait by Emma Chen

In Emperor can Wait, well-known Johannesburg restaurateur Emma Chen delicately prepares and serves up reminiscences of her fascinating childhood in the newly formed Republic of China in Taiwan and of her early adulthood in both Taiwan and South Africa.

Emma’s evocative reflections are framed by the exodus of the Kuomintang from Mao Zedong’s communist China, and resonate with the popular Chinese saying ‘Emperor can wait – while we eat’, which captures the importance of food. The sights, sounds, smells and characters come alive through short, descriptive vignettes that each centre on a traditional Chinese meal and its meaning to family and friends. Recipes for Emma’s renowned dishes are provided at the end of each chapter for those readers who would like to try their hand at preparing them.

Through her stories, Emma explores what happens when one is ‘transplanted’ to a new environment, discovering that nostalgia can be a powerful agent of inspiration.

About the author

Emma Chen’s fascination with food as an ingredient that brings people closer together took root in her childhood in Taiwan. In the early 1980s, Emma travelled to South Africa to further her studies. While working as a waitress, her passion for the preparation and appreciation of food was re-ignited, leading her to open the award-winning, traditional-Chinese cuisine restaurant, Red Chamber, in 1989. Emma’s enthusiasm has ensured that the Red Chamber is widely regarded as the best Chinese restaurant in Johannesburg.

Book details

• Emperor Can Wait by Emma Chen
  EAN: 9781770101678
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Paddy Bouma illustrated the new, Chris van Wyk-abridged Long Walk to Freedom – a task that took almost a year to complete. She calls the work the crowning piece of her career in this interview with Bianca Capazorio:

With Nelson Mandela's strong focus on children and literacy, it is no surprise that his life story, Long Walk to Freedom has been rewritten as a children's book.

Abridged by Chris van Wyk, who worked on the original, and illustrated by Paddy Bouma, the book was launched in Cape Town to coincide with literacy month.

It will be available in all 11 official languages.

'Our children are our greatest treasure'

Mandela's great-grandson, Ziyanda Manaway, 8, was at the Joburg launch and read out a message from his great-grandfather.

“Our granddad believes that education and reading are two of the most important things for children. He has asked me to read you this message: 'Our children are our greatest treasure. They are our future. The system of apartheid robbed many children of their right to a decent education and of the joy of reading. This joy is one that I have treasured all my life, and it is one I wish for all South Africans'.”

Cape Town-born illustrator Bouma said that illustrating the book was “the crowning piece of one’s career”.

Bouma, who now lives in Stellenbosch, was originally approached by Pan MacMillan books and after being vetted by the Mandela Foundation, was given the go-ahead in December 2007.

The drawings took her nearly a year to complete and Bouma said the book was challenging in several ways.

“It’s a very big book, it’s twice the size of a normal picture book,” she said of the hardcover book which has more than 50 pages.

(more…)

This is the second of nine synopses of books eligible for the Citizen Book Prize.

The winner will be determined by readers’ votes. To help get your favourite published, vote and make your mark (see the voting box below the synopsis).

Voting for each synopsis will be open for the week following its publication in CitiVibe and on the Pan Macmillan blog. If you miss that, you will be able to re-read and vote for all ten synopses online from 12 – 18 November.

Vote now! Tell your friends! This is the only book prize for unpublished authors chosen by the reading public.

The Citizen Book Prize synopsis Two

Living with My X

by Stephen Semaj

LIVING With My X is the exceptional story of Stephen, born a boy, but with an extra X sex chromosome. Hidden in Stephen’s DNA are female (XX) and male (XY) chromosomes, and they are at war. This condition is known as Klinefelter’s Syndrome.

Stephen was born in 1957 anatomically male; no one would have noticed anything amiss. He grew up a pretty child, loved and indulged by his mother; but in a home fraught with the problem of a father who couldn’t work due to mental illness.

Once Stephen began attending school, he ran into trouble. He experienced learning difficulties; he was small, not good at sports, socially inept and didn’t lose his milk teeth – all symptoms of Klinefelter’s.

In adolescence, the female and the male chromosomes began to fight for dominance with renewed verve and things began to go awry. He didn’t develop like other boys and his mother took him to see a string of doctors until one finally suspected the condition – with disastrous effects on Stephen.

Stephen’s story is about living with and coming to terms with a debilitating condition. He takes a journey into his childhood to try and understand his life, hoping to reconcile the hand that nature has dealt him and overcome difficulties he faces at home. It is the old story of nature versus nurture.

His childhood is a veil for the harshness of life; it is simple and lovely. Once the veil is lifted at adolescence, Stephen is confronted by a body that refuses to grow and sexual development that avoids him; he is frightened and confused.

Stephen’s journey begins with his first days in the South African Air Force. It is 1975 and the country is on the brink of war on its borders.

Stephen is 17 years old but he weighs only 45 kilograms and is five-foot-one-inch tall. He wonders how he will cope with the macho aggression of military life.

During his teenage years, he is surrounded by chauvinistic, belligerent males. His brother, his teachers and his school have all challenged his weaknesses. He has had to fight his own battles and find ways of avoiding the hostile and forceful culture around him.

Stephen’s story is about what it means to be a small, shy and puny male in an uncompromising world. His only allies are his mother and sister. Somehow he finds his niche in the cracks of the harsh world in which he lives.

In recounting his childhood, Stephen crafts a beautiful portrait of growing up in Johannesburg. He reawakens the culture of the Seventies as he ventures back into memory and forward again through the difficulties of relationships, marriage and work.

His search for meaning is a tribute to his courage and finally, a triumph of self acceptance.

* * *

Vote for Living with My X by Stephen Semaj

The Citizen Book Prize: Living with My X by Stephen Semaj(answers)

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