Trevor Hay – författare

The author explores his China curios, some tangible, like opium pipes and cricket 'palaces', some intangible, like memories and dreams. His 'cabinet of curiosities' contains a whole anthology of strange tales; of the erotic adventures of the 'Old Buddha' Empress Dowager, of two extraordinary foreign hermits in China, of murder and mystery in the 'Badlands' of Beijing and the demi-monde of Chinese theatre and of poignant ruins that serve both as witnesses to the tragedy of past East-West encounters and as potential sources of future understanding.

Tom Harley, retired professor and historian of Central Asia, Tibet and China, succumbs to a late-afternoon dream but his dream is hijacked by 'ghost-writers', two visitors from the other side, not of life itself, but of his own mind. In order to distract Tom from his usual regrets and obsessions, the visitors construct a 'play for voices', excerpts from Tom's collection of travels in 'Tartary', but they are unable to decide on a f inal meaning for the play until inspired by a combination of a fourth-century Chinese calligraphy and Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. Ultimately they leave a message for Tom from the realm of poetry and wine, but will he find it?