*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, Junja was a “real” mermaid, a Korean haenyeo – one of the world-renowned freediving women who gather sea life – of Jeju Island. By 2001, she’s spent most of her life as “a pillar of the Korean American community in...
A chance to redo the past in Before the Coffee Gets Cold Time travel and café culture yields a lovely, wise brew in a translation of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s popular play-turned-novel. Originally debuting onstage in Japan, Before the Coffee Gets Cold won praise and awards for its playwright, Toshikazu Kawaguchi....
The youngest winner ever of multiple important literary prizes in her native Korea, Ae-ran Kim’s first full-length novel arrives Stateside, hauntingly English-enabled by lauded translator Chi-Young Kim (no relation). Areum suffers from progeria, a rare disease that causes rapid, premature aging: “My dad sees his...
Wayétu Moore is the first to speak, although only briefly, to share her initial excitement over the possibility of narrating her elegant memoir. That opportunity, alas, became another “casualty of COVID-19,” preventing her from safe studio time, but she adds a personal thanks to narrator...
That she’s fluent in Korean, Japanese, and English ensures a smooth double debut – as memoirist and narrator – for poet E. J. Koh (A Lesser Love). Her languid delivery is a lulling invitation into emotional intimacy. From her San Jose, California, birth into early...
In a story of “they said, she heard, he believed, she can’t remember,” whom do you trust? Even the title misleads – True Story: A Novel – while the final words confirm little: “But I’m trusting you to see this is true ...
Prodigious Soneela Nankani – who reigns as the South Asian/South Asian American voice-of-choice – ventures onto onto a new continent, landing in Ghana to cipher debut novelist/gender scholar Peace Adzo Medie’s not-quite-Cinderella tale with energetic aplomb. Once upon a time, Afi was a poor village seamstress-in-training,...
*STARRED REVIEW Edie is 23, has a bottom-tier publishing job, and inhabits a shabby sixth-floor Bushwick walk-up. Eric is 23 years older, a New Jersey archivist, and in an open marriage – with rules dictated by his wife. Their one-month online affair compels a first date...
Hardworking Malia and Augie have plenty of love but can’t ever quite get ahead. In hopes of providing better opportunities for their three children, the pair relocate from Hawai'i to Oahu, but not before Augie insists the family share an adventure on a glassbottom boat...
Veteran voice actor Stacey Glembowski – already seasoned with substantial science fiction experience – immediately commands Diane Cook’s (Man v. Nature) timely novel debut in which 20 desperate men, women, children abandon their depleting City lives to become the inaugural Community in the Wilderness State....
For Naoki Urasawa newbies, his latest collection (another satisfying English translation by popular manga-specialist John Werry) is a beckoning introductory primer. For aficionados, these eight stories (none titled “Sneeze”), originally published between 1995-2018, are an affirming reminder of his irrefutable genius. Urasawa’s most memorable stories feature...
During the 985 nights since she was cleaved from her then 19-month-old, still-breastfeeding son, Homeira Qaderi managed to escape her native Afghanistan and eventually settle in California. Her son, now 4, has been told his mother is dead. With this haunting memoir, Dancing in the...
A continuous "runaway bestseller" for over two centuries, Hokusai Manga re-emerges in the U.S. in an irresistible boxed gift set. Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), renowned for his iconic The Great Wave Off Kanagawa print and the woodblock series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, created...
*STARRED REVIEW Former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey makes both her prose and narrating debut with a startling memoir that alchemizes neverending trauma into an exquisite memorial. On June 5, 1985, Trethewey’s mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, was murdered by former stepfather Joel Grimmett on Atlanta’s Memorial...
*STARRED REVIEW Introduced to Western audiences with the internationally awarded Bad Friends (2018), Ancco returns with a five-years-in-the-making collection she wrote in her early 20s, originally published more than a decade ago in her native Korea. Translated by prize-winning Canadian Janet Hong, these 13 stories are largely...
“I’m not a big fan of the common sentiment, ‘Cancer made me a better person,’” Kimiko Tobimatsu admits in her author’s note. “But then, cancer did make me a better person.” Diagnosed at 25 with “a rare form of breast cancer – mucinous,” Tobimatsu is...
If reading various dialects on the page is at all challenging, allow Adjoa Andoh to immediately immerse you in the mellifluous Nigerian English patois Abi Daré infuses into her empowering debut novel. At 14, Adunni is denied the education she so longs for, and is...
*STARRED REVIEW Here’s what we might know – or agree on from limited historic documents and scholarly guessing research – about the Bard’s wife: she’s commonly named “Anne Hathaway” but her father referred to her as “Agnes” in his will; she was older than her still-teenage husband;...
*STARRED REVIEW With only a few audiobook credits each, Yetide Badaki and Chukwudi Iwuji might be considered audiobook newbies. Their extensive acting experience however – especially Iwuji with his substantial work on British stages – ensures that Nigerian-born, award-winning literary darling Akweke Emezi’s sophomore adult title...
*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, the Galvin family seemed perfect. Father Don's work with the Air Force brought the family to (coincidentally, presciently named) Hidden Valley Road in Colorado. There, mother Mary oversaw the raising and nurturing of their dozen children – 10 boys and...
