*STARRED REVIEW The story starts at the end – “Today Su Lan begins to die” – and finishes at the beginning – “her new American life.” In between, multiple fragments pieced together from various points of view present an immigrant teenager’s quest to understand who she...
For the second year, I got to read along with two fabulously erudite co-horts – my Library Journal editor Barbara Hoffert and fellow LJ reviewer Lawrence Olszewski – to compile this 10-title list of remarkable, unforgettable, best-of translated world literature. We all read voraciously throughout the year,...
*STARRED REVIEW With a mere handful of solo credits, Ewan Chung is a relative newbie to audiobooks, but his remarkable versatility proves the ideal fit to showcase Daniel Nieh’s outstanding thriller. The DC-born Chung is a talented polyglot, fluent in Mandarin (he translated the DVD audio...
*STARRED REVIEW From the Reindeer Ewenki people of remote, mountainous Inner Mongolia comes a glorious tale about an aging hunter and the baby moose that followed him home. During an all-night hunting trip, Gree Shek killed a moose, not knowing she had calved out of season....
This is the first of a two-part series. Part II will publish on Friday, August 30, 2019. Before I can name even a single author or title, I must express my constantly regenerating, overflowing gratitude to translators who enable readers anywhere and everywhere to literally experience the...
*STARRED REVIEW Fifteen years ago, Toronto-based artist Ange Zhang debuted Red Land Yellow River (2004), a gorgeous, hauntingly rendered autobiography about coming-of-age during China’s Cultural Revolution, marked by incomprehensible, chaotic, threatening change. The beloved father he introduced then becomes the subject in this book, its title a...
The “largest mass slaughter of Asians on the American continent” claimed the lives of over 300 Chinese immigrants in May 1911 in Torreón, in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Despite its magnitude, the massacre remains a “buried episode,” obscured by substantial erroneous coverage, that writer,...
Last Boat Out of Shanghai has four stories at once personal and universal As the child of two refugees, Helen Zia can speak to the effects of displacement, separation, and the personal costs of survival, adaptation, and reinvention. As an advocate for Asian American and other minority communities,...
Clearly the internationally lauded Yu Hua's translator of choice, Pomona professor Allan H. Barr anglophones seven early stories Yu (Brothers) wrote between 1987 and 1991. In his edifying introduction, Barr explains that during China's "post-Mao liberalization" (from the late 1970s into early 1980s), "writers devoted...
While texting with a (much younger) Korean American friend the other day about meeting at the movies, I gave her two choices: CRA or Searching. I was all giddy on my end, thinking how phenomenally lucky we were to have TWO APA choices, but my...
With a superb blend of historical, cultural, socioeconomic reportage, and plenty of engaging real-life stories, The Economist’s Cuba correspondent Roseann Lake alchemizes her five years in Beijing into a lively first book about the fate and future of China’s accomplished, independent, powerful – and unmarried – women. Over the last...
In Perfume Bay, a luxurious oasis just outside Los Angeles, pregnant Chinese women are pampered through the U.S. birth of precious progeny who will provide their parents with “a foothold in America.” Among the guests is factory-manager Scarlett Chen, sent to the U.S. to bear...
'What We Were Promised' depicts post-Mao China in a deft debut novel set in Shanghai Beyond divisions of class, culture, and background, a single African ivory bracelet connects a Chinese American ex-pat family, their staff who enable their (over)privileged lives, and their left-behind Chinese families in...
*STARRED REVIEW When young Yu’er laments, “People think I’m different,” her grandfather’s immediate response, “Oh, who cares what they think!” sets her free to be just that and more. She’s different because she’s physically challenged, but Grampa ensures her mobility via push cart, wooden chair on...
Knowing each other's stories – even the most private details – doesn't equate with the true intimacy of having "someone to talk to." The two distinct sections of Liu's (Remembering 1942) latest Anglophone-friendly novel present two such lonely men whose seemingly unrelated lives share a...
*STARRED REVIEW Leigh and best friend Axel "figure out what the other person's feeling" by asking "'What color?’": "carbazole violet" for silence, "burnt orange" for anger, "Prussian blue" for hurt. Their unexpected first kiss sets off a "whole goddamn spectrum" of feelings Leigh doesn't have time...
Now-adult adoptees who arrived in the United States from other countries are learning that their U.S. citizenship can’t be assumed. Two recent tragedies have highlighted the shocking realization: the May 2017 suicide of Phillip Clay, adopted at eight by a Philadelphia family and deported to Seoul 29...
What sweet agony to have so many fantabulous, freakin’ spectacular books from which to cull. I’ve got my 2017 favorite adult titles down to a baker’s dozen, chosen under great duress. They’re presented in alphabetical order – opposed to actually ranked, a feat which just might...
It’s the time of the year to be scared witless – and by choice, egads! Gluttons for fear, unite. And brace yourselves for the following 13 diverse hauntings. The Black Isle by Sandi Tan The protagonist begins her life as Ling, the first-born twin in a well-to-do Shanghai clan. Half...
'Nine Continents' is Chinese author Xiaolu Guo’s resonant memoir about leaving her past Audiences familiar with Chinese-born, British-transplanted Xiaolu Guo’s prolific output know she’s alchemized elements of her own life to produce her fiction and films. Her remote village upbringing and Beijing education inspired Twenty Fragments...
