Nonfiction Archives - Page 6 of 56

Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son by Homeira Qaderi, translated by Zaman Stanizai [in Shelf Awareness]

05 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Afghan, Afghan American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

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...

Hokusai Manga by Katsushika Hokusai, edited by Kyoko Wada, translated by Polly Barton [In Shelf Awareness]

04 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

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...

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey [in Booklist]

03 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*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...

Nineteen by Ancco, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

02 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*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...

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker [in Library Journal]

25 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*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...

Invisible Differences: A Story of Asperger’s, Adulting, and Living a Life in Full Color by Julie Dachez, illustrated by Mademoiselle Caroline, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

In her enormously affecting comics debut, Invisible Differences, French activist Julie Dachez introduces her autobiographical stand-in, 27-year-old Marguerite. Marguerite's daily life is most comfortable when she abides by her familiar rituals: wear soft clothes, depart for work at 7:30 a.m., grab her daily spelt roll...

A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South edited by Cinelle Barnes [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Edited by memoirist and essayist Cinelle Barnes, A Measure of Belonging gathers 21 "established and emerging" writers of color with Southern ties – by birth, immigration, relocation. The resulting collection examines, defines, and confronts the idea of belonging. A highlight is Carnegie Medal-winner Kiese Laymon's (Heavy)...

The Winter of the Cartoonist by Paco Roca, translated by Andrea Rosenberg [in Booklist]

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Spanish, Translation

In a book about rebels, reading against the presented order is highly recommended. Eisner-nominated Paco Roca (The House, 2019) is part of the Spanish graphic novel elite, already awarded virtually all the Spanish honors, and this is the work he’s “always wanted to create”: both...

The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family by Bettye Kearse [in Library Journal]

08 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost

Retired pediatrician Bettye Kearse, her family’s eighth griot (storyteller/historian/genealogist), traces her lineage over two centuries: “Always remember – you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president,” her predecessors instilled. The fourth U.S. president, James Madison, never had biological children with wife Dolley. He...

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson [in Booklist]

05 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost

In writing her now-classic The Warmth of Other Suns (2010), Pulitzer-Prized (and first Black woman so honored) Isabel Wilkerson reveals in her highly anticipated follow-up, “while working on ...

Guantánamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison by Sarah Mirk [in Booklist]

02 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW For this project 10 years in the making, journalist/writer Sarah Mirk gathered a diverse dozen comic artists; fellow journalist/writer Omar El Akkad (American War, 2017), who provides the searing introduction; and historian/journalist Andy Worthington (The Guantánamo Files, 2007), who contributes fact-checked accuracy. Together, this creative village...

The Third Population by Aurélien Ducoudray, illustrated by Jeff Pourquié, translated by Kendra Boileau [in Booklist]

25 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

The opening is undoubtedly jarring: in a father/son conversation about an upcoming work trip, author Aurélien Ducoudray explains he’s going “[t]o a place where crazy people live.” Despite the initially shocking language (most likely not lost in translation by Penn State University Press’s editor-in-chief Kendra Boileau), the...

Welcome to the New World by Jake Halpern, illustrated by Michael Sloan [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American, Young Adult Readers

Welcome to the New World made its debut as a biweekly comic strip in the New York Times that "chronicle[d] the arrival and experience of a single [Syrian] family." The author/illustrator team, Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, went on to win the 2018 Pulitzer Prize...

Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, European, Hmong American, Memoir, Myanmarese (Burmese) American, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian American, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

"The people in this book are people from your lives," Kao Kalia Yang writes to her three sleeping children in the final chapter of her affecting hybrid nonfiction collection, Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir. Minnesota – where Yang has lived for...

Dead Girls by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW "As a girl, I sensed that there wasn't really anywhere I was safe," Selva Almada (The Wind That Lays Waste) reveals in the chilling author's note about growing up in a provincial Argentinian town. By 8, Almada had already experienced verbal sexual abuse, accosted...

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine [in Booklist]

24 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW As early as age 8, Adrian Tomine (Killing and Dying) publicly announced exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: “A famous cartoonist,” he told his Fresno class in 1982. He confused his teacher, who thought perhaps he aspired to be Walt...

Happiness Will Follow by Mike Hawthorne [in Booklist]

23 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Puerto Rican, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Born Michael Anthony Hawthorne, his last name was “swiftly pilfered from [his] father” by his Puerto Rican mother “to keep [him] safe in ways she never was.” Yet surviving into adulthood was a near-superhuman feat: his single mother’s fierce love came with horrific stipulations...

Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Ultimately, Inferno is a love story: raw, unfiltered, wrenching, lifesaving. Catherine Cho, a Korean American literary agent living in London, makes her debut with a scorching memoir about the postpartum psychosis that nearly destroyed her – but didn't. On November 4, 2017, Cho and husband, James,...

Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir by Bishakh Som [in Booklist]

07 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American

Earlier this year, Bishakh Som debuted her dazzling graphic collection, Apsara Engine, the genesis of which is found here – inseparably entwined with Som’s own unique origin story. Som introduces herself in a narrative frame, bordering the memoir’s beginning and end: “I wanted to clue...

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang and Adrien Gombeaud, illustrated by Ameziane, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

31 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lun Zhang was there during “the largest spontaneous gathering in all of Chinese history,” surrounded by “the joys and smiles of Beijing’s youth” hoping to achieve freedom and democracy. At 26, he was older than his student counterparts; he had “lived through the regime’s most...

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