Winner Of The Costa Poetry Awardpoetry Book Society Recommendationflche (the French Word For Arrow) Is An Offensive Technique Commonly Used In Fencing, A Sport Of Mary Jean Chans Young Adult Years, When They Competed Locally And Internationally For Their Home City, Hong Kong. This Cross-linguistic Pun Presents The Queer, Non-white Body As Both Vulnerable (flesh) And Weaponised (flche), And Evokes The Difficulties Of Reconciling Ones Need For Safety Alongside The Desire To Shed Ones Protective Armour In Order To Fully Embrace The World.central To The Collection Is The Figure Of The Poets Mother, Whose Fragmented Memories Of Political Turmoil In Twentieth-century China Are Sensitively Threaded Through The Book In An Eight-part Poetic Sequence, Combined With Recollections From Chans Childhood. As Complex Themes Of Multilingualism, Queerness, Psychoanalysis And Cultural History Emerge, So Too Does A Richly Imagined Personal, Maternal And National Biography.