Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You, a memoir of saying the unspeakable with food by food critic and writer Candice Chung.
Elliott & Thompson are delighted to announce the acquisition of Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You: A Memoir of Saying the Unsayable with Food by Candice Chung.
Publishing Director Sarah Rigby acquired UK & Commonwealth rights (ex. Canada) from international rights manager Sandra Buol at Allen & Unwin, Australia. The book will be published in hardback, ebook and audio in on 25th April 2025. It grew out of her story, ‘Why Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You’, first published on The Sydney Morning Herald over ten years ago, generating more than 2 million page impressions.
What is the most unsayable thing you have ever wanted to say to your parents? A long-held gripe, a difficult secret, a bottled up swear word or two? For newly single food journalist Candice Chung, there’s been one thing on her mind lately: ‘If anything happens, I love you.’ Simple. Reasonable. A message that, during bathroom mirror rehearsals, makes herself a little teary, even. If only her retired Cantonese parents weren’t so allergic to the word ‘love’.
Still, she’s determined to tackle what’s left unsaid. To find a different vocabulary. A way to unscramble what her family has been trying to tell each other all along – not in Cantonese or English – but with food.
As Candice dives into the rituals of dining as a family, and her parents offer to join her at restaurants she’s due to review, she begins to unravel how a decade of silence and distance have shaped their relationship. Through shared meals and culinary adventures – from steaming hotpots to bowls of congee with still-warm sourdough – they begin to confront the unspoken and what it means to show care when you come from a culture where saying ‘I love you’ isn’t the norm. Slowly a new kind of connection emerges – tentative, often awkward, but tender.
Set against the backdrop of a burgeoning new relationship, grasped-at date nights mid-pandemic and an uncertain future across seas, Candice reflects on migration, solitude and intimacy. How can we rebuild closeness when we’ve drifted apart? Can food fill the gaps where words fail? And how do you balance the desire for connection with the need for personal freedom?
For anyone who has ever found their loved ones’ emotional worlds impenetrable, Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You is a bittersweet and evocative exploration of love, culture, and the unspoken language of food. It’s a testament to how meals can act as bridges, and sometimes barriers, in our closest relationships – packed with heart, humour, and those fragile bright-hearted moments around a dinner table that bring us together.
Sarah Rigby, Publishing Director at Elliott & Thompson said:
‘I am thrilled to be bringing Candice’s warm, wry and generous voice to the Elliott & Thompson list. She fills her scenes with delicious detail – a hotpot surrounded with ‘private’ and ‘public’ chopsticks; a Cantonese couple holding hands in hiking gear; a pyramid of prawn casings; a bubbling paprika octopus. There is such joy and truth to be found in how the food we eat together can become a conduit to connection – and I know so many readers will feel this too.’
Candice Chung, author of Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You said:
‘I am delighted for Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You to find a home in Elliott & Thompson’s exciting list. This is a deeply personal project to me, and I am thrilled to be working with Sarah and her team to bring the book to its readers.’
ABOUT CANDICE CHUNG
Candice Chung is a Glasgow-based writer and editor. Her work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, Good Food, The Australian Gourmet Traveller, The Guardian, Gutter, and more. She is a founding member of Diversity in Food Media Australia, which supports and promotes underrepresented voices in food. Her story ‘Why Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You’, first published on The Sydney Morning Herald over ten years ago, generated more than 2 million page impressions. It’s still being widely shared among children of reticent parents today.