LONGLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD
A GRAZIA BOOK CLUB PICK, Ghost Girl, Banana is a powerful debut novel about the family secrets unearthed by a surprise inheritance. Set between Hong Kong in the 1960s and London in the 1990s, and revealing the hidden life of a mother to her daughter, it asks questions of identity, race and belonging.
1966: Sook-Yin is exiled from Kowloon to London with orders to restore honour to her family. As she strives to fit into a world that does not understand her, she realizes that survival will mean carving out a destiny of her own.
1997: Sook-Yin’s daughter Lily can barely remember the mother she lost as a small child. But when she is unexpectedly named in the will of a powerful Chinese stranger, she embarks on a secret pilgrimage to Hong Kong to discover the lost side of her identity and claim the reward. But she soon learns that the secrecy around her heritage has deep roots, and good fortune comes at a price.
‘A real nail-biter … so winningly chronicled by Wharton’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Ambitious … readers won’t be disappointed as Wharton ultimately resolves many mysteries in the book’ GUARDIAN
‘An astounding debut … written with emotion and astuteness, this deserves to be on book prize lists’ PRIMA
Ghost Girl, Banana by Wiz Wharton
Wiz Wharton was born in London of Chinese-European heritage. She is a prize-winning graduate of the National Film and Television School where she studied screenwriting under filmmakers Stephen Frears, Mike Leigh, and Ken Trodd. She and her work have been featured on various broadcast platforms, including radio, television and in print. She was the 2020 winner of The Jericho Writers Self Edit Bursary and a finalist in The DHA Open Writers Week. She currently divides her time between London and the Scottish Highlands.