Debut author Emma Pei Yin chats with Zibby about her remarkable and harrowing new novel, WHEN SLEEPING WOMEN WAKE. Set in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong during WWII, the book follows the gripping journey of a mother, daughter, and maid as they struggle to reunite after being torn apart by the war. Emma shares the personal family history that inspired the novel, including stories from her grandfather, a long estrangement from her grandmother, and her own journey toward reconnection and healing. She also shares her path to writing, the challenges of moving to Australia alone at 19, and how her desire to honor silenced female voices shaped her storytelling.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Emma. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about When Sleeping Women Wake. Congrats. 

Emma: Thank you. 

Zibby: Yay. Okay. Tell listeners please, what your book is about. 

Emma: So my book is a historical fiction novel. It's set in Japanese occupied Hong Kong during World War 2.

So it spans three years, eight months, and it follows the story of three remarkable women. We have a mother, her daughter, and their maid. And when the Japanese invade, they're basically torn apart. And the rest of the book is just kind of them trying to find their way back to one another. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. And you start way back in the early 19 hundreds and you take us all the way through.

How did you come up with the idea for this, and I know you did so much research, so tell me a little bit about the inspiration and then how you accomplished this feat. 

Emma: Okay, so it was inspired by family stories. Um, so growing up I was born and raised in the uk but you know, I always went to visit my grandparents in Hong Kong for mid autumn festivals and Chinese New Year.

And it was during those times that my grandfather spoke really fondly about, you know, um, the Japanese occupation. He was, it was always filled with like anger and, and despair, but. When I was younger, I didn't fully comprehend the stories that he was telling. You know, I would just think, okay, he just seems very angry all the time about about the Japanese people, and it wasn't until I was a bit older that I started to learn the history behind it.

Um, and I started to learn more about, you know, Japan occupying other Asian countries. And that's when it hit me. I thought, okay, we, we have a story there. But I think most importantly, the fact that my grandmother, who was a baby at the time when the war broke out, she. Was always so quiet and she pretty much refused to talk about anything Japanese related, and so I think it kind of ignited something in me.

I wanted to know why she wasn't willing to talk about things or what her story was, and that's kind of how it came about. Yeah.

Zibby: So then what did you learn about your own grandmother's story that you were able to put in the book? Like, how much is fictionalized? You know, tell me the whole thing. 

Emma: So a lot of the stories that I heard from my grandfather, I've put into the book.

So we've got the East River column resistance. We've got what happened to local civilians, what happened to, you know, American, Canadian and British, um, civilians in Hong Kong at the time, how they were interned in the camps. Unfortunately, the last. 15 years. I actually have had no contact with my grandmother just due to family issues, which obviously happens with a lot of families.

Um, but we actually reunited last year, so I managed to reach out to her through my uncle. And, um, we spent, we've, we just WhatsApp all the time now, but I still never learned the stories of what she knows about the wall. And so it is mainly fictionalized through the accounts of my grandfather. 

Zibby: Wait, can we go back to not speaking to your grandmother for 15 years?

Wait, you can't just gloss over. What kind, what kind of family issues kept you apart? 

Emma: I feel like every family has their problems, you know? And so when I stopped talking to my grandparents, I was only 17, 18 at the time. So when the family sort of had that breakup, I wasn't very much part of what was going on.

And then, you know, my parents and I, I had just graduated from high school and then I moved myself to Australia away from my parents as well. So I think there's like a lot of things to unpack there. Maybe I'll write a book about it one day, but I, so yeah, so, but it's really nice that I have managed to connect with my grandmother again and she's really happy about the book, so.. 

Zibby: That's good. That's great. And you moved by yourself at age 17 to Australia with no other family there? 

Emma: I moved when I was 19, so when I was 17, I finished up high school and then I worked for one year in Hong Kong and I was teaching English, and the plan was to actually move back to London to go to the New York Film Academy.

And so I was accepted to do screenwriting there. But again, you know, I come from a very strict Chinese family and, um, my parents were really not interested in anything creative or the arts. And long behold, I ended up just kind of running away from home, but still felt like I had to please my parents in a way and ended up studying, you know, marketing, which was something that my dad thought was quite useful at the time and

yeah. Anyway, so when I turned 30 I realized I can't continuously please my parents on everything. And I enrolled back into university into creative writing and that was that. 

Zibby: So what is your relationship with your, I'm sorry, I'm totally prying. This is none of my business. What's your, what is your relationship like with your parents now?

Emma: You know when I moved to Australia, we didn't talk for eight years. It was really on and off. So my dad and I spoke, we, we spoke through emails here and there sporadically. Um, but my mom just was not interested in wanting to get to know me as an adult. And I think, you know, mother daughter relationships are so difficult to understand sometimes, but they recently visited. I'm 36 now, and I feel as though our relationship is slowly mending in a way. Yeah. 

Zibby: That's really hard. 

Emma: It is really difficult. Yeah. And I think that translates into the book why I felt I had to have Ming Chang, as you know, like I really needed the mother and daughter relationship to be loving. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Emma: And loyal and trusting of one another. I needed that somewhere in my life. And so I think I just put it into the book. 

Zibby: Wow. And did you feel better somehow healing of some sort, a healing of some sort after? 

Emma: A hundred percent. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Emma: Yeah, yeah. I did. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. Well, I feel like when, and if you're ready to share the actual story of what happened, that would be very juicy and dramatic, and I would read that book in a heartbeat.

Emma: So no, it sounds like one of those really like soapy dramas. 

Zibby: It does, right. Oh my gosh. As she tosses the next historical novel and starts writing her own life. No, I'm kidding. Okay, so you get, you go back to school for creative writing, and then you decide to write this book. Where did you even begin? You knew you wanted a loving relationship, or maybe that somehow came out through the history.

This is an epic, you know, one of these like epic books that like will be on a history list type of thing. You know, this is a, a, a story of a, of a time where you learn a lot about the culture and the history. You also connect with all of the characters, like that's no easy feat. So tell me a little bit about structuring this, figuring out how to even accomplish this.

Like how do you just do it? 

Emma: It's years of research, but it all, it all comes back to the East River column resistance and the stories that my grandfather told me. So I knew that I wanted that in the book. And then I knew I wanted to kind of give voice to, you know, women in my family that I feel. Uh, very into creative arts, but they could never express themselves.

So my mom is extremely creative and I have an aunt who's extremely good at, you know, uh, painting and illustrating and, but no one ever pursued those kind of goals in my family. And so I think putting, you know, women's wants and needs and then putting, you know, my granddad stories, I was like, okay, we can make something outta this.

But the research took. A long time because I'm a, I'm currently away from Hong Kong, so, and then with COVID and everything happening, it wasn't as easy as, okay, I'm just gonna hop on a plane and go visit all the museums and all the different places. So I had to kind of go off memory of what I did already know and then look into the national archives.

And I think I tried looking through Google Scholar, reading all the essays. It was a rabbit hole. I just jumped right in and from that, certain characters started to come alive, you know, and you, we have a few characters in the book that are based on real people as well, so, yeah. 

Zibby: Wow. How long did the actual writing part of it take?

Emma: I think I start, okay, so I started this one in 2019 to 20, 20 20. It was, yeah. 

And then COVID hit, right? And so you've got the whole lockdown and I'm like, great. You know, all my friends and family were just distraught at lockdown and I was just sitting there at home like, this is the best thing ever. Like I can actually, I don't have to go to work. I can just write. So, yeah. 

Zibby: That's great. Oh my gosh. So when you're going through a hard time, who do you turn to? Is it the, is it friends? Like, how do you get through a challenge with the book integrating all this information a day where maybe a chapter's not going your way or you're upset about your family or whatever. How do you get through? 

Emma: If it's family related, I always talk to my aunt. So my mom's younger sister and I have a very good connection. We have a really great relationship. Um, so when I do struggle with feeling lonely because I don't have family here in Australia and it kind of does impact you, especially around Christmas or you know, your birthdays and Mother's Day, father's day, you do feel very alienated and quite alone.

So I do tend to talk to my aunt a lot, and then there's my partner as well, mark who. I mean, he's just incredible. He's like the best assistant ever as well. So I mean he was like setting up like my webcam and everything. 'cause I bought a new one tonight and Can you get this already? 

Zibby: Looks great. It looks great. Tell him check plus. 

Emma: Fantastic. He gets 10 out of 10. 

Zibby: Yeah, 10 out of 10. Oh, that's great. And what books inspire you? What do you like to read in your free time? If you have free day.

Emma: I've always loved historical fiction. I mean, I grew up watching historical Chinese dramas with my grandma and a lot of Hong Kong TVB, dramas too.

So I've always loved history. Um, and then growing up in the UK I was obsessed with the shooters and abiline. Um, I lived in. Tum dwells, and I remember my dad taking me to Heva Castle and I was just like breathing in the air. The Amber Lynn once breathes, you know, it just feels amazing to be in those places.

There's just something about history. It's. And the events and the things that occur to people, I feel like it's always very timeless. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Emma: You know, it's always relatable, even if you know the clothing's different and the buildings all look different, the relationships that people have with one another, that's timeless and it just always translates, you know, as the years go on. So, yeah, I really like the aspect of it. Historical fiction. 

Zibby: So true. I feel like sometimes history class at school gets it wrong with like all the documents you have to analyze. What about the people? Like tell me the stories. 

Emma: Yeah, right. 

Zibby: That makes everything real. Oh my gosh. So much easier to remember when you connect with somebody and all of that, so that's great. Are you working on a new project at this point? 

Emma: I am, I am working on my next book, which I think is already very difficult because I, I was able to spend many years researching for when Sleeping Women Wake. But my next book is due to my publishers, um, a year from now. And so I feel like I have to sort of cram in all this research and then go ahead and write the story.

And it did change. I, I had a story where I was going to write about two sisters in, you know, 19th century China, rural China, but that's actually been scrapped. I, I came across some declassified documents from a particular country's government recently, and. There's something really great in there, so I'm working on that and hopefully I can bring that story to life.

Zibby: Ooh. 

Emma: I know. Yeah. 

Zibby: Really intriguing there. How did you come across. Unclassified documents nobody else has found. 

Emma: Well, it's not that nobody else has found it. There's just really not much news around it. Ah, okay. You know, um, and I think when it, when it comes to, you know, minority stories. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Emma: It's, it's never front page news anyway, so it, it's right there. It's, it's, it's online. Several news outlets have spoken about it and, and. It, it came out in 2016, so, but I was shocked that I didn't hear anything about it until I went digging for, you know, Chinese migrant stories and, yeah. 

Zibby: Wow. Okay. That sounds really good. And then you have a backup story about the sisters if you ever need it. Right. You can take all the deleted pages, save them. That's a good idea, right? 

Emma: Yeah. 

Zibby: Delete them. 

Emma: Yeah. 

Zibby: At the land of lost stories or something. How is the literary scene in Australia where you are? In what part? Are you in Sydney, or where are you? 

Emma: I'm in Canberra. In the capsule. 

Zibby: You're in Canberra. Okay. 

Emma: Yes, it's really lovely here.

It's, um, it's a nice city. It's comfortable and I always say to my friends, if you're going to have kids and you want to raise a family in Australia, Canberra's the place to be, you know, everything's just at your fingertips or just, you know, 10, 15 minutes car ride away. But yeah. 

Zibby: Awesome. That's great. We have an author who we published in Canberra, Emma Gray. Maybe I'll, you know.

Emma: I'm trying to think about the literary scene in Canberra. It's, it's quite small. We definitely have, you know, the writers' center here, um, ION as well, and I know a couple of local authors, but it's nowhere near as big as, you know, like Sydney or Melbourne or even globally. When you think about. You know the festivals that you see online that happen in the US and the uk, those are massive, right? 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Emma: So I think Australia, yeah, just thinking about it, I think Australia is. The literary scene is extremely rich and very cultural, but I think when it comes to stories from, you know, Chinese authors or even women of color authors we're quite far behind compared to the us. Yeah. 

Zibby: Huh. Okay. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors? 

Emma: I'm really bad at giving advice. 

Zibby: Great. 

Emma: Um, but I think. What worked for me was I knew I always wanted to write and I just kept pushing it off, you know, and telling myself, oh, now's not a good time. Now's not a good time. But I don't feel like you will ever find that good time or that it will really come unless you just sit down each day just for even half an hour and write something. And that will, that's all you need. Yeah. 

Zibby: Okay. It's motivating. I need that advice. Very motivated. Um, okay. Well, Emma, thank you so much. Congratulations. I can't wait to read about the ins and outs of your family, all of your hidden secrets, and uh, of course this was wonderful. So thank you so much for coming on.

Emma: Thank you so much, Zibby. 

Zibby: Okay, take care. 

Emma: Thank you. Bye. 

Zibby: Okay, bye-bye.