Red Pockets

An Offering

Alice Mah

$45

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Allen Lane
22 July 2025

Memoirs; Society & Social Sciences; Cultural studies; Sociology: family & relationships; Sociology: customs & traditions; Social impact of environmental issues

A haunting family memoir about what we owe our ancestors and our descendants, from an unforgettable new voice

'Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations.'

Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their home villages in China to sweep the tombs of their ancestors, making offerings of food and incense to prevent them from becoming hungry ghosts that could cause misfortune. Yet for the past century, a time ruptured by war and revolution, many tombs have been left unattended. Following a record year of wildfires, Alice Mah returns to her family's rice village in South China, and discovers that her ancestors are almost forgotten, and there are no tombs left to sweep. Instead, there are incalculable clan debts to be paid.

Here Mah chronicles her journey from the rice villages of South China to her home in post-industrial England, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she grew up, to the isles and industry of Scotland where she now lives. As years pass and fires rage on, she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors' neglected graves. Her research on pollution gives way to growing eco-anxiety, culminating in a crisis of spiritual belief.

A haunting blend of memoir, cultural history and environmental exploration, Red Pockets confronts the hungry ghosts of our neglected ancestors, while searching for an acceptable offering. What do we owe to past and future generations? What do we owe to the places that we inhabit?

By: Alice Mah
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 223mm, Width: 145mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 347g
ISBN: 9780241608319
ISBN 10: 0241608317
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 22 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Alice Mah is a Chinese Canadian-British writer and Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at the University of Glasgow. Originally from a small town in northern British Columbia, she has a long-standing interest in ecology and place. Her award-winning research focuses on toxic pollution and environmental justice, the subjects of her most recent books- Petrochemical Planet and Plastic Unlimited. This is her first trade book.

Reviews for Red Pockets: An Offering

Fear of the future, an ache for the past, the present awash with disquiet: into this turmoil, Alice Mah's book appears like a little red boat, keeping hope afloat against all odds -- Anita Roy * Guardian * Moving and imaginative... One of the most unusual and powerful books I’ve read in a long time -- Rosemary Goring * The Herald * Mah's writing is intelligent and highly observational... she's a strong, lucid storyteller -- Mark Rowe * Geographical * Sensitive and sensible... Mah seems fortuitously well-placed to be between despair and fortitude * Scotsman * A beautifully written, deeply fascinating and richly thought-provoking book which looks, bravely, at what it means to live at this most ecologically destructive time; about what we inherit, and what we leave behind. Moving, important and finely crafted -- Lucy Jones Red Pockets is a fascinating exploration of the linkages between ancestral inheritance, diasporic belonging, and our climate future. Mah takes us on a keenly observed, immersive journey, from an astute sociological portrait of a Chinese clan village to toxic petrochemical towns to the green hills of Glasgow, and offers surprising, beautifully interconnected insights on material and psychic debt, climate despair, trauma and hope. I read it in one sitting, which took me on a moving and often unexpected journey -- Aube Rey Lescure Mah asks beautiful questions on grief, climate and identity that are as urgent as they are pensive. The result is a spiritual Bildungsroman that envelops the reader in a meditation on past, present and future -- Jenny Lau