Biracial author Siobhan McDermott draws on Chinese heritage for debut fantasy Paper Dragons

SINGAPORE – While many biracial children may feel torn between different cultural identities, Hong Kong-Irish debut children’s author Siobhan McDermott, 32, never felt the need to choose.

Over a Zoom call from her home in the small town of Welwyn Garden City, England, the author of Paper Dragons, which was published on Feb 1, says: “My parents fostered a strong sense of self in me. At home, my mum would speak in Cantonese and my dad spoke in English. I would get English and Cantonese bedtime stories, so I never felt that I had to choose between the two.”

Born in Hong Kong to a Chinese mother and an Irish father, she grew up speaking both languages and hearing stories from both cultures.

She says: “I do remember a moment when I was with this other girl – we were probably four or five years old. We wanted a story read to us, but couldn’t decide what language we wanted it in. My mum decided she would alternate one word in Cantonese and the next in English and read the entire book that way. Thinking about it now, it’s just spectacular. I don’t think my brain could switch back and forth that quickly.”

Despite attending Discovery Bay International School, which largely caters to the extensive expatriate population in Discovery Bay, while in Hong Kong, much of McDermott’s social circle came from her mother’s friends and their children.

However, with her big eyes, fair skin and light brown hair, McDermott is aware of how white she appears.

“I take after my father quite a bit and some people will look at me and say, ‘I don’t see you as Chinese.’ But for my friends in Hong Kong, they say, ‘Well, obviously, you’re Chinese. I only see you as Chinese.’

“Still, there are others who say, ‘I didn’t even realise you’re biracial. I assumed that with a name like Siobahn McDermott, you’re fully Irish’,” the author says.

McDermott’s novel was born during the Covid-19 pandemic, which gave her the opportunity to work on one of the story ideas floating in her mind.

With a light Irish accent, she says: “During Covid-19, I was living in the United Kingdom while my immediate family was together in Ireland. There was a bit of homesickness, which then became nostalgia. I’ve been very fortunate that up until then, we would visit Hong Kong annually to see family, so the pandemic made me realise for the first time that I didn’t know when I would see my family next.”

Paper Dragons: The Fight For The Hidden Realm follows 12-year-old orphan Zhi Ging, who gets the chance to be a Silhouette, an apprentice to the immortals. Training as a Silhouette is difficult, but it soon becomes clear that something more dangerous is at play, as those who fail their trials begin disappearing.

“This book started off almost as a comfort blanket of going through my childhood memories and stories my mum had told me. It was like looking at them through a kaleidoscope and bringing them all together in a children’s book,” she says.

Her Chinese name – Mak Syu Wun – appears on the book cover, reflecting her pride in her twin heritage. Her publishers were happy to include her Chinese name, but her mother had other thoughts.

“My mum said, ‘There’s so much anti-Chinese sentiment with Covid-19, so do you want to conceal this more and give the character a more Western name?’ It was so upsetting to me that my mum had to feel that, that she felt the need to hide her identity.”

“For me, because I’m extremely white-passing and aware of that, I felt like I had to make a stand that I was proud of both sides of my culture. This is not something I’m ever going to shy away from,” she says.

She encourages other Asian authors to include their Asian names on covers if they wish. “It’s an extra line of print, it’s not costing the publishers any money. Put both names on.”

Where many Chinese-inspired fantasy novels use Mandarin words or Mandarin-inspired words, McDermott’s novel uses Cantonese for its character names, locations and terminology.

“In the book, I refer to food by their Cantonese names rather than simplifying it into English because I feel like that loses a lot of the nuance. We need to give children more credit when they’re reading, even if English is their only language. Oftentimes, they’re learning new words through context clues.”

A glossary at the end of the book explains the words and includes the Chinese characters. This offers readers a chance to learn more if they wish, and for those who recognise the characters, it is a nod to a shared culture.

However, McDermott acknowledges that the Romanised spellings are not fully accurate to what native Cantonese speakers would use.

“I found sometimes that I would see the Romanised spelling of a Cantonese word and think ‘That’s not how I would spell it,’ which may be influenced by my mother’s own accent. I wanted to give people the easiest entry to it, so that if they were reading it out loud, they wouldn’t need to memorise the sounds of two vowels or consonants next to each other.”

With framed artworks hanging on the wall behind her, one of which is a particularly unimpressed frog, McDermott shares a final message to her readers in Cantonese: “Eat more dim sum. It’s not a deep or powerful message, but that’s my message.”

6 dragon fantasy books to look out for

In the Year of the Dragon, keep an eye out for more dragon fantasy novels.

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White by Amelie Wen Zhao Delacorte/464 pages/$24.04/ Amazon SG (amzn.to/3HLZocJ)

In this sequel to Song Of Silver, Flame Like Night (2023), Lan continues in her quest to destroy the Demon Gods and avenge her mother’s death.

Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan
Orbit/448 pages/$22.37/Amazon SG (amzn.to/49a8TOy)/Due out on Feb 27

Half-siren Mira finds her new job as captain of the border guard in jeopardy when an exiled water dragon, Nami, joins an anti-human extremist group that reveals a political game neither of them are ready for.

Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu
Harper Voyager/576 pages/Due out on April 2

The son of a failed rebellion leader, Jai finds an opportunity to avenge his father and learn the secrets of the Dragon Riders when he escapes with a princess’s handmaiden and a dragon hatchling.

Of Jade And Dragons by Amber Chen
Viking Books/480 pages/Due out on June 18

Disguised as her brother, engineer Anhui Ying heads to the capitol to find the assassin who murdered her father, armed with the jade pendant she snatched from the assassin and her father’s journals.

Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi
Knopf/576 pages/Due out on July 4

Davico di Regulai is primed to take over his family’s merchant business. As tensions rise over his family’s power and political influence, Davico is tested and tempted by the dragon eye relic his family owns.

The Phoenix Keeper by S.A. MacLean
Gollancz/320 pages/Due out on Aug 15

Head phoenix keeper at a zoo for magical creatures, Aila scrambles to save the phoenix breeding programme after a botched heist. She can wrangle mischievous dragons and carnivorous water horses, but can she save the nearly extinct phoenixes?