The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka [in AsianWeek]
26 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Malaysian, Repost, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Sri Lankan
In another British import of a debut novel, Manicka draws from her own history to create a family saga of four generations and 70 years. At the family’s core is its matriarch, Lakshmi, who...
Hong Kingston’s much awaited new book begins with the calamitous fires in the Oakland-Berkeley hills of October 1991 that strike as she is driving home from her father’s funeral –...
A runaway bestseller in its native Britain and quickly climbing the charts on this side of the pond, Ali’s assured debut novel follows the life of Bangladeshi-born Nazneen, who arrives at age 18 in...
One of the three newest additions to the Girls of Many Lands series [click 
In his excitement over building his new kite, young Ping-Li flies his creation unfinished. The emperor of the sky tells Ping-Li his unpainted, undecorated kite is the most boring in the sky, so Ping-Li...
Born Hiranyagabha Chakraborti in 1857 during the time of the Indian Mutiny (when Indians rebelled against the ruling British) on the same day of his father’s death, Hiran (as he comes to be called)...
Her Bum Is on Fire: Jessica Hagedorn debuts with her latest novel
After years of chatting on the phone and sending various e-mails back and forth, I finally got the chance to meet writer extraordinaire...
Living in the Space of 'In-Between': In any language, author Yoko Tawada is easily understood
If I wanted to make my mother truly proud, I would finally complete either of the...
Building Character: Susan Choi re-emerges with her second novel, American Woman
In many ways, Susan Choi’s life has been a series of unpremeditated choices. “I didn’t set out to bring my life into line with...
Forget your stereotypical visions of the meek and timid Japanese housewife who waits for her salaryman husband with slippers in hand and dinner on the table. Meet Masako and her fellow night-shift food processing plant co-workers...
The woman who inspired the Taj Mahal had all but been lost to history until Sundaresan recreated her in her historical novel The Twentieth Wife, released earlier this year in paperback. Sundaresan...
The follow-up to the award-winning A Bridge Between Us, Shigekuni's newest novel tells the haunting story of Lily Soto, a young Japanese American woman who appears to have the perfect life with her adoring...
The book, apparently "based 80-90 percent on real stories," is admittedly over-the-top in a Miss Saigon sort of way. But the Donna/Mai story is everything Hollywood is searching for – so no...
A poignant, lovely bilingual tale about a little girl who visits her ancestral home in Vietnam and realizes that she can be both Vietnamese and American, with a home here...
A rootin', tootin', foot-stompin' porcine party to tickle your dancing feet.
Review: 
The third thriller from See to feature Liu Hulan, an agent for China’s Ministry of Public Security, and her husband, American lawyer David Stark. This time, they’re investigating a potential murder and archeological theft...
Don’t know how this one fell through the cracks as I devoured it months ago and it was one of my favorites this whole year –...
Move over, Harry Potter – here’s a totally different kind of fantasy series. While this is the first available installment in English, the Japanese version has up to 89 titles! [Publisher Vertical, Inc. has...
A fabulous collection of prose and poetry from a new generation of Korean American authors. Grouped into three sets of pairings – arrival/return, dwelling/crossing, descent/flight, all with multiple layers of meaning –...
A wacky first novel about Korean American Ginger Lee, an English PhD dropout working in the fashion industry and trying to avoid her well-intentioned mother’s attempts to marry her off before she...