first edition of the author's second novel

This is a very good first edition of Timothy Mo's second novel, Sour Sweet, after the success of his 1978 novel, The Monkey King. Mo is a British-Asian novelist, having spent his early childhood in Hong Kong before moving to England at 10 years old.

The novel tells the story of an immigrant family from Hong Kong in 1960s London, articulating the complicated position of the Asian diaspora in the UK at the time. Its first passage begins, 'The Chens had been living in the UK for four years, which was long enough to have lost their place in the society from which they had emigrated but not long enough to feel comfortable in the new.'

Sour Sweet was awarded the Hawthornden Prize, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and adapted into a 1988 film directed by Mike Newell.

Mo became increasingly mistrustful of publishers in the 1990s and since 1994 has self-published all of his novels under the label 'Paddleless Press'.

First edition; 8vo; slightly toned but otherwise clean interior; publisher's green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, a very good copy with uncut pictorial dust-jacket, lightly faded spine panel; [iv], 252pp.