Red Pockets

An Offering

Alice Mah

$45

Hardback

Forthcoming
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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

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