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Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s Debut Novel in Stories
Fiona Sze-Lorrain (‘03CC) published her first book of fiction, Dear Chrysanthemums: A Novel in Stories (Scribner 2023), after having published five poetry collections, and nineteen translations. “I started writing plays, stories, essays, then poetry and translation, but poetry came about earlier in terms of publication,” she said.
“I believe every fiction writer can also be a poet and vice versa,” she added. “My experience with verse work helps me better find a balance between imagery and narrative voice in prose. It also helps me to focus on the micro level: sentences down to the smallest detail.”
In a 2021 interview with Columbia College Today, she recounted her first days on campus. She was 19, arriving from Singapore after a stay in Canada, with little knowledge of New York City. Family friends who lived in Queens helped her moved into John Jay, the top floor, with a view of Low Library. “I was happy, brave, eclectic and ready for any adventure or mischief. I was curious about Columbia and the city, and of course, America.”
She went on to describe her writing process. “I wrote longhand for Dear Chrysanthemums, just as I did when at Columbia.” She said, “I still write longhand, which is important to me, more so when we’re now so ‘connected’ digitally. I find writing longhand meditative. The slowing down makes me rethink my plotlines.”
Dear Chrysanthemum is a novel in stories about “the scourge of inhumanity, survival, and past trauma that never leaves” the women featured. Each chapter is set in a year ending with the number six, a number that signifies “smooth life.” Her novel was longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. She credits her years on the Upper West Side and Columbia for inspiring parts of the chapter set in 1976 and 1996, "Reading a Table," which features Harlem and the Westside Market on Broadway and 110th Street.
When asked whether her next book project will be fiction or poetry, Sze-Lorrain said, “I’ve been reading. My tastes as a reader are eclectic. The last fiction I read: Ali Smith, Arundhati Roy, Michel Butor. I also read fashion and phytotherapy magazines, cookbooks, technology-related books. I take long walks in the city [Paris] and do math puzzles for fun.”
Sze-Lorrain has been a writer-in-residence at the contemporary arts museum, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina, among other places, a visiting writer and artist at various universities and colleges, an editor of an international literary magazine, and a publisher at Vif Éditions. She translated Almost Invisible (Presque invisible), a bilingual (French-English) edition of a collection of prose pieces by Mark Strand, former U.S. Poet Laureate and Columbia professor (2005-14). She served as the 2019-20 Abigail R. Cohen Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination. She was also a judge over a list of 71 novels for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award, and for the inaugural John Calder Prize in the UK. She returns to the Calder Prize jury this year.
Her advice to aspiring writers: Do not hurry, do not stop (Goethe). “It seems the original quotation is Do not hurry, do not rest, but I find stop better than rest. I believe rest is vital.”
Sze-Lorrain is also an accomplished musician and composer. She gave her first concert at age nine, and has been performing since 2003. She has played at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, among other venues, and is considered “a major zheng harpist of her generation.”
Sze-Lorrain became a member of the CFF in the fall of 2025. Her novel in stories, Dear Chrysanthemums, along with her poetry books and translations, can be found at leading bookstores, including at Bookshop.org.
Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s website: http://www.fionasze.com/