About the Book
In the humid dark of a eucalyptus-scented room, a woman named Hui lies on a mattress telling stories about herself to her listener, a little girl. She talks about her identity as the child of an immigrant, her feelings about being in a mixed-race marriage, her opinions on mental health. But as her stories progress, it becomes clear a volatile secret lurks beneath their surface. There are events in Hui’s past that have great significance for the person she’s become, but that have gone missing from her memory. What is it, exactly, that is haunting Hui? Who is the little girl she talks to? And who is Hui herself?
As the conversation continues, what unfolds is a breathtaking, unexpected journey through layers of story toward truth and recovered identity; a memoir that reenacts, in tautly novelistic fashion, the process of healing that author Shze-Hui Tjoa moved through to recover memories lost to complex PTSD and, eventually, reconstruct her sense of self. Stunning in its originality and intimacy, The Story Game is a piercing tribute to selfhood and sisterhood, a genre-shattering testament to the power of imagination, and a one-of-a-kind work of art.
Praise for The Story Game
"A unique memoir that constantly undermines and reworks itself as it braids together episodes from the author's life, a destabilising approach that calls into question how accurately we can remember the past while we are still processing it."
Jeremy Tiang, writer and translator
Reading The Story Game is nothing short of an immense privilege. Shze-Hui Tjoa writes with her heart on her sleeve and the sanctity of her soul risked on every page. I wish every writer could pay testament to life—and our tricky relationship to the writing of life—the way she has done so earnestly, thoughtfully and playfully here.
Daryl Qilin Yam, writer, editor and author of Be Your Own Bae
Shze-Hui Tjoa has written a book that understands that stories are built out of erasure and silence, but they are also made from a relentless belief in transformation. To tell the story, again. And maybe this time, we might finally reveal what is hidden, even from ourselves. What a beautiful, brave act this book is of reclaiming, forgiving but also of un-naming. Sometimes stories teach us to say yes. This one reminds me we can also say No.
Lawrence Ypil, author of The Experiment of the Tropics
The Story Game is a truly inventive memoir told in the form of autobiographical essays that ask what it means to be political in body and mind while aspiring to always be more than we are. Nothing is as it seems in this memoir that’s both reflexive and reflective, and Shze-Hui Tjoa’s careful excavation of disembodiment’s nature knits together the very mind-body separation her memoir interrogates in a journey of healing that will have the reader questioning the narratives we cling to in order to survive. What emerges is an act of courage, confrontation, and intimacy rendered in beautiful, lucid prose.
Jemimah Wei, author of The Original Daughter
About the Author
Shze-Hui Tjoa is a Singaporean writer who lives in Edinburgh, UK. Her debut, The Story Game, was named a best nonfiction book of 2024 by Electric Literature and Paste Magazine when it was first published in the US and Canada. Shze-Hui is an editor at Guernica and Adi Magazine. Her writing has received support from arts organisations in the US, Portugal, Singapore, and Morocco. You can read her author interviews and find out more about her creative philosophy via her website, www.tjoashzehui.com.
