My Sweet Curiosity tells the story of Natalya, a young medical student, too smart for her own good, who twists an already complicated genetic background rooted in the Romanov family into an impossible fantasy of reproductive technology which ultimately reveals its own strange truth. Talya falls in love with Dai Ling, a cello student of extraordinary talent, and daughter of Jia Song Xiang, doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.

Set in modern day Toronto, the story ventures into Renaissance Europe, looking over the shoulder of Andreas Vesalius as he opens the body and maps it accurately for the first time; to Beijing where Dai Ling's parents meet and emigrate before the Tianenmen Square massacre; to Palestine, following Vesalius on his pilgrimage; to the deathbed of Talya's mother in a Geneva cancer clinic.

My Sweet Curiosity explores the border between fact and fiction, the relation between medical science and music, and the enduring mysteries of the human body.

Amanda Hale, novelist, poet, dramatist and journalist, has been writing for over 30 years. Of her three novels, Sounding the Blood — which she has recently adapted as a screenplay — was a finalist for the BC Relit Awards and was voted one of the Top Ten novels of 2001 by Toronto's Now Magazine; and The Reddening Path - about a Guatemalan adoptee to Canada - has been translated into Spanish. Hale lives on the BC coast and travels frequently. In the Embrace of the Alligator includes an award-winning story published in Prism International. Hale’s extensive time in Cuba over the past seven years has inspired her to write about the most elusive and fascinating culture she has yet encountered. She writes from the inside, about ordinary Cubans, attempting to untangle the knot of contradictions that is Castro’s Cuba.

Amanda Hale's profile page

Seán Virgo was born in Malta, and grew up in South Africa, Malaya, Ireland and the U.K. He immigrated to Canada in 1966 and became a citizen in 1972. He has published a number of works of both poetry and fiction including: Pieces for the Old Earth Man(1974); Island (1975); Selected Poems (1990); White Lies & Other Fictions (1981); Through the Eyes of a Cat (1983); Selakhi (1987); Wormwood (1989); and Waking in Eden (1991). His work has won various awards, including the CBC Competition (first prize for fiction, 1979); The BBC 3 Short Story Competition (first prize, 1980); and National Magazine Awards (first prize for both Poetry [1979] and Fiction [1990 ]).

Seán Virgo's profile page

My Sweet Curiosity

by zoe.r2005

My Sweet Curiosity by Amanda Hall is a great read. Set in Toronto, the novel tells a love story between Talya, a medical student, and Dai Ling, a cello student. Both are from immigrant families that come a long way after escaping respectively from communist Russia and China. The myth of Talya’s birth, a career link between her and Andreas Vesalius, the founder of modern human anatomy, and her family’s linkage to the Romanovs are fascinating. The musical talent of Dai Ling can be traced back to her Chinese grandfather that she’s never met; her bravery is inherited from her French Canadian grandmother. The love between the two girls seems to be fated, from which they can identity their passion, devotement, desperation, and joy. According to Dai Ling’s father, East meets West in Toronto. However, the conflicted beliefs in medical practice, family value, and love also encounter in a kaleidoscope of the city. The scene of Talya’s confrontation with Dai Ling’s father is very enjoyable, but the storyline of Andreas Vesalius reads tedious to some extent. At the end of the story, when the readers pictures the image of Talya with the skull of Andreas Vesalius immersing in the melody played by Dai Ling, mixed feelings of satisfaction and sadness arise.