The Tiger (in)Flu(ence): Posthuman, Abject Bodies, ‘Speculated’ Femininities and Diasporic Subjectivities

Abstract

Written by Larissa Lai, a Chinese-Canadian writer who has always alchemized her production with Chinese mythology, The Tiger Flu (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018) is a polyphonic novel because of the plurality of interpretative acts it evokes, and because of its interweaving of different literary frames and genres. In the first part of this essay, I analyse how Lai exploits this complex intertwining of genres to address a sense of diasporic belonging. In the second part, I explore how this approach leads to moving beyond normative and totalizing definitions. Lai sets up a multifaceted feminine space where issues about the rethinking of the category of woman, sisterhood and a broader conception of the community can be raised. I argue that Lai’s representation of non-normative female bodies becomes functional in revealing how abject bodies can challenge the hegemonic meaning of gender and identity. In a critical reading that cannot be divorced from a (trans-)Canadian context, I conclude by exploring how Lai guides her readers on an intimate journey across increasingly fluid borders and an unsolved (and unsolvable) vision of the future.

Keywords:

• transcorporeality
• body politics
• borders
• diasporic subjectivities
• (trans)-CanLit
• fourth-wave feminism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Tiger Flu was first published in 2018 by Arsenal Pulp Press. My analysis of the cover refers to that edition.

2 Several critical studies have explored the COVID-19 pandemic as a collective traumatic experience. Tracking individual experiences of the pandemic and recognizing significant individual variations determined by the more or less direct exposure to its most damaging effects, such studies have, however, highlighted the collective mental impact of COVID-19. For a broader understanding and discussion of the psychological characteristics of the COVID 19 experience as collective trauma, see, for example, the very recent Tihamer Zana Bako, Katalin Zana, Psychoanalysis, Covid and Mass Trauma: The Trauma of Reality (2023).

3 Throughout the chapter, italics frame Kora’s narration, separating it from the third-person narration.