Owlish

In the mountainous city of Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition: a life-sized ballerina named Aliss who has tantalizingly sprung to life. He has a dull marriage and a lacklustre career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard.

A deliciously dark subversion of the fairy-tale form set in an alternate Hong Kong, Dorothy Tse's extraordinary debut novel is a boldly inventive exploration of life under oppressive regimes and an urgent warning against the insidious perils of apathy and Guided by his mysterious friend Owlish and inspired by an inexplicably familiar painting, Q embarks on an all-consuming love affair with Aliss, oblivious to the sinister forces encroaching on his city and the protests spreading across the university that have left his classrooms all but empty.