Silent Friend

Silent Friend (2026) weaves three vignettes around an ancient Ginkgo biloba in a medieval German university town, each chapter anchored in a distinct era. In 1908, the university’s inaugural female botany student faces the entrenched sexism of her time. Decades later, in 1972, a student’s life intersects with a housemate’s geranium, amidst the liberating zeal of counterculture. Finally, in 2020, a Hong Kong neuroscientist collaborates with a botanist on an experiment involving the Ginkgo, a tree silent witness to a century of human evolution.