Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology edited by Bruce Fulton and Youngmin Kwon [in AsianWeek]
29 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation
A remarkable, diverse collection of short stories, written between 1924 when Korea was still a colonized nation, and 1997 when a story can begin with an epithet from Jim Morrison.
Review: <a href="http://bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com/files/2009/08/asianweek-2005-09-29-new-and-notable.pdf"...
A new translation of a Japanese classic that follows Botchan, the mischievous, fun-loving Tokyo-ite to rural southern Japan where he’s assigned to teach in a boys’ school. What’s a rule-breaker to do?
Review: 
The first available translation of important fiction highlighting the Japanese colonization of Korea: Kannani exposes the brutality endured by Koreans at the hands of their Japanese oppressors – even among the children – while Document follows...
Two novellas about women on the verge of change: in Hardboiled, a woman hiking in remote mountains realizes it’s the anniversary of her ex-lover’s death and overnights with a ghost,...
This slim volume of short stories by Nobel Prize Winner Gao, does not offer linear tales with pithy morals. Instead, it’s an elliptical collection...
Innocence lost: 17-year-old Ami is both schoolgirl and prostitute, pregnant by her mentally challenged older brother, brutally gang raped by a rock star and his groupies, but capable of restoring the dormant virility of...
If this 120-page novel rife with sex and violence were any longer, reading it would be unbearable. That it won Japan’s highest literary honor, the Akutagawa Prize, for its then 20-year-old author,...
Published under a pseudonym because of its autobiographical nature, this hoping-to-be controversial novel recounts the erotic maturation of a young Muslim woman. She’s married off at 17 to an older man who brutalizes her under familial...
The long-awaited follow-up to the provocative 
A heartbreakingly inspirational book about a young girl in a tiny rural Chinese village who desperately wants an education, and the love and gratitude she feels for her parents –...
From the celebrated author of 
A collection of 10 inventive stories that capture a glimpse of contemporary life in a Vietnamese village where the writer, actress, director, and painter Doan Le lived for 30 years...
The discovery of an illicit link between the murder of a middle-aged salaryman and a college student is just the beginning. What the police find is a fantasy family the murdered man formed online,...
Billed for “the general reader and student alike,” this compilation is a noteworthy introduction to “the essence of Chinese poetry.” Beginning with the Book of Songs (allegedly collected...
In the wake of the devastation caused by the Cultural Revolution and the government corruptions of the Open Door Policy, the Chinese people can do little more than just survive – and some are...
Here’s the set up: a 15-year-old boy runs away from home possibly in search of his long-missing mother and sister, and is befriended by a library employee and a young...
Mmmm, mmmm, good – the pictures alone will make you hungry. Who knew tofu could be toothsome on the page? You can even learn how to make tofu from scratch. After all...
Contemporary American poets Bly and Hirschfield present English versions of works by the legendary Mirabai. Born in India in 1498, Mirabai is one of the original independent women of history, eschewing social morés to live a...
Liu, a genetic scientist, arrives to visit her husband, Li, at his job site at the famed (or should that be infamous?) Three Gorges Dam Project...
From the author of Red Sorghum comes a monumental novel that follows 20th-century China through the lives of the eponymous woman and her nine children, none of them...