One of the three newest additions to the Girls of Many Lands series [click here for an article about the series debut] from Pleasant Company (famous for its...
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...
A touching story about an immigrant Muslim family of five from Egypt, which shows details from their everyday lives. The book is especially relevant now, in order to expose young readers to...
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...
Read Different. Read Vertical.
So there seems to be two basic types of readers of Japanese fiction: those who revere the classic writers like Kawabata, Tanizaki, Ōe, and maybe Mishima with an occasional contemporary foray into Haruki...
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...
A Thoroughly American History: A Talk with Historian Iris Chang
While Iris Chang was writing her international best-seller, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, her hair started falling out. Small wonder,...
Gathering History for the Future: A Profile of Curator & Historian Franklin Odo
For decades, Franklin Odo has been a professional groundbreaker. He was the first from his Hawai’i high school to get to Princeton...
Read Different. Read Vertical.
Move over Kawabata and Tanizaki. Move over Oe and even Mishima. Here comes Vertical, Inc. with its translated texts for the everyman – or woman. While Japanese pop culture – think...
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...
An intriguing collection of interviews with one of the most brilliant minds today. Originally broadcast on KGNU in Boulder, Colo., the interviews cover such topics as the so-called peace process, the 2000...
A rather quirky, earnest memoir of sorts – although Muench won't mind if you call it a novel because he admits that "there is some fiction...
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...
Koul captures the lives of four generations of women in her native Kashmir, a tiny country caught between India and Pakistan since the Partition of 1947, the year of her birth. She weaves a...
Make sure you get this one into your library – it's the very first collection of historical writings by and about APA women. It's about rethinking our collective past as...
The re-release of the 10-million copy-strong bestselling epic memoir about three generations of Chinese women, opens with a brand-new introduction by the author. First published in 1991, Chang chronicles the lives of her concubine...
