Historical works about Korea in English – especially during the tragic years of the Japanese occupation (officially 1910-1945) – seem few and far between. So I really wanted to fall madly in love with this debut novel by fellow Korean American Eugenia Kim. While I was grateful for...
The "traffic" in Chen's collection revolves around broken love, made even more jarring by a literal jaggedness on the page with the layout of her words. The protagonist, Xiaomei, loses love too many times. In childhood, her first loss is her father who "disappeared into...
Welcome to an alternative premodern Edo Japan where women do everything – including rule! Girl power all the way! Without a cure, the mysterious Redface Pox has ravaged the country's male population until it finally "stabilized at about one-fourth that of the female." Men have become...
The Booklist review blurb on the stark black back cover (with a heart-breaking pink balloon floating away) should serve as quite the warning: "Not for gentle readers." Probably best known as a playwright, Adam Rapp has certainly created a busy, award-winning career by exploring the darker characteristics...
"At first I was afraid, I was petrified ...
From "aa" to "zyxt" [you'll have to look up the meanings yourself, because you thankfully can], the Oxford English Dictionary is filled with ...
So indulge me for a reductive semantic moment: 'serious' comic books are graphic novels (say, Archie vs. Will Eisner's A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories); in Japanese terms, 'serious' manga is also known as gekiga. If you're interested (otherwise skip to next paragraph), here's...
In spite of a spare not-quite 100 pages, Ha Jin's first nonfiction – and must-read – title is filled with fascinating, challenging ideas about writers living in countries and creating in languages not originally their own. Best known for his 1999 National Book Award winning novel, Waiting,...
September 26 through October 3 this year is "Banned Books Week"! Good thing someone one told me! So how fitting that I was lucky enough to receive Border Town, the pre-Communist Revolution masterpiece by Shen Congwen (1902-1988), who although virtually unknown in the West, is...
With the adorably acclaimed Ponyo now out in theaters nationwide with its dubbed all-star Hollywood cast (Miley Cyrus' little sister? one of the Jonas Brothers?), a whole new young audience is enjoying the latest from anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki, creator of the spectacularly successful My Neighbor...
That the book opens with a three-page list of characters seems a bit daunting ...
Since the 1980s, Chinese writers determined to bear witness to the atrocities of Mao’s Communist regime have bypassed censorship by writing “documentary literature,” blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Drawing on 100-plus interviews, Xianhui Yang’s 13 thinly disguised stories chronicle the brutality of the Jiabiangou...
The final installment in the three-volume manwha that began with The Color of Earth and The Color of Water, follows Ewha, now a lovely young woman, and her still-young mother, as both wait for their respective missing lovers. Ewha's Duksam flees the wrath of his...
If you see a book cover with the name Dai Sijie on it, read the book. Dai's delightful 2001 debut, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, about two young boys who discover a love for literature while sequestered in a re-education camp during Mao's Cultural Revolution,...
Based on actual tragic event in a remote Indian coalmine in 2001, Badahur – an ex-director in the Indian Ministry of Coal until 2006 – makes his literary debut with a scathing insider's look at the tainted coal industry. Badahur recounts the multifaceted layers of the...
Referred to on the front flap as "highly autobiographical," this slim story proves to be an addictive quick read. The protagonist Amélie (who is not so unlike the author Amélie) returns to Japan where she was born to Belgian parents and spent part of her...
Whenever my kids start singing "Crazy Kiya Re," still one of their favorite songs after multiple trips to India, I find myself having to leave the room. Since reading the 14-story anthology Delhi Noir, I can't disassociate the Bollywood hit from the police officer who...
The Vietnam War undoubtedly remains one of the most confusing, hotly-debated events of world history. Decades later, the war's legacy cannot be accurately measured, much less fully understood. Just in time for back-to-school, the first-ever graphic version – 140 pages of black-and-white-drawings – of the complicated war...
Told in the three alternating voices of a Chinese mother and her two Chinese American daughters, Fan Wu's second novel weaves a family tapestry filled with the multiple layers of intermixed cultures and generations. Mary, once Guo-Mei, now lives comfortably in Silicon Valley with her American-born...
Every mother and daughter needs to share this book. Actually, every woman should have a copy of it. Given the incredible success of Eve Ensler's revolutionary play, The Vagina Monologues, "the menstruation monologues" are the natural next step! Of course, this funny, touching, memorable collection could...
