Writer Ken Liu became the first author to win the Hugo, the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award -- science fiction's three major honors -- for his 2011 fantasy short story "The Paper Menagerie." I just read it. Consider me a new fan.Originally published last year in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the heartbreaking story is about a boy, the son of an American man and his Chinese mail-order bride, who grows up feeling alienated because he's different. The mother speaks little English, but she has the gift to blow life into her origami animals. The tale is magical... and very sad.
io9 recently posted the story in its entirety: Read Ken Liu's amazing story that swept the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards.
One of my earliest memories starts with me sobbing. I refused to be soothed no matter what Mom and Dad tried.Read the rest of "The Paper Menagerie" here.
Dad gave up and left the bedroom, but Mom took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the breakfast table.
"Kan, kan," she said, as she pulled a sheet of wrapping paper from on top of the fridge. For years, Mom carefully sliced open the wrappings around Christmas gifts and saved them on top of the fridge in a thick stack.
She set the paper down, plain side facing up, and began to fold it. I stopped crying and watched her, curious.
She turned the paper over and folded it again. She pleated, packed, tucked, rolled, and twisted until the paper disappeared between her cupped hands. Then she lifted the folded-up paper packet to her mouth and blew into it, like a balloon.
"Kan," she said. "Laohu." She put her hands down on the table and let go.
A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.
I reached out to Mom's creation. Its tail twitched, and it pounced playfully at my finger. "Rawrr-sa," it growled, the sound somewhere between a cat and rustling newspapers.
I laughed, startled, and stroked its back with an index finger. The paper tiger vibrated under my finger, purring.
"Zhe jiao zhezhi," Mom said. This is called origami.
I didn't know this at the time, but Mom's kind was special. She breathed into them so that they shared her breath, and thus moved with her life. This was her magic.