Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian American Art by Elaine H. Kim, Margo Machida, and Sharon Mizota [in AsianWeek]
A unique dialogue centered around 24 works by visual artists of varied Asian heritages, between the artists themselves and writers, cultural critics, social activists, curators, scholars, and other artists. The...
Looking Back at a Family's Internment: Julie Otsuka's novel debuts in paperback
OK, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Julie Otsuka's
Move over, brothers – here’s an improved version of the now classic (though annoyingly exoticized) tale of Chinese siblings … this one’s all about girl power featuring seven sisters, each with remarkable...
No matter who is in your family and where those family members come from – mom, dad, and two kids with a sister from China, or two moms and their...
When have you ever had an alphabet book that used “xenophobia” for the letter X? “… you’ll need to leave one X at home, and that’s for ‘xenophobia,’” it reads....
A playfully clever, subversive story with fabulously whimsical pictures about a little Korean girl who doesn’t like her name spelled out in English letters: “Lines. Circles. Each standing alone,” she...
An energetic, kid-friendly tour (perfect for curious adults, too!) from a sushi bar to Tsukiji (the world’s largest fish market, located in Tokyo) to the sushi history annals, then back to the...
Adorable tale, invitingly illustrated, that juxtaposes the homeward journeys outside with a little boy’s one last round of toy play just before he goes to bed.
Review:
In the middle of a fierce storm, a wolf and a goat comfort each other in a completely darkened hut against the deafening thunder outside. The unlikely pair get to know one...
In the delightful sequel to
Based on traditional Islamic sources, award-winning children’s book maestro Demi creates a book specifically for children about the life and teachings of Muhammad. The book underscores that Muhammad’s message is the same message the prophets of...
While she may be a bona-fide genius, 11-year-old Millicent Min, who has skipped five grades and is taking a college class for fun, learns that using just the brain does not a whole person...
The third installment in the
In order to sign up for the dancing class at the local recreation center – so it can get government funding – Fiona Cheng has to indicate her race. Being Scottish from...
Having survived the horrors of war in her native Laos and 10 long years of living in a cramped, filthy, and dangerous refugee camp in Thailand, Mai Yang and her grandmother are finally allowed...
Originally banned in China, To Live was the basis for the 1994 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner of the same name, directed by grandmaster Zhang Yimou. A surprisingly slim volume, To Live tells...
An entertaining ghost story with a twist about a recently divorced television script writer who takes to visiting his parents … except they died tragically in
an accident decades ago, leaving him an orphan from childhood. The...
The yakuza genre, or gangster films, have more or less replaced samurai films in both quantity and popularity in Japan. Schilling, a Japan Times film reviewer since 1989, brings together all the...
A striking, original collection of multi-layered short stories about life caught between the old and modern, between expectations and hopes, between dreams and reality. The opening story, “Gopal’s Kitchen,” is especially poignant about a...
Eleven essays capture almost a half-century of Nobel Prize-winning Naipaul’s literary life. The final essay, “Two Worlds,” which he begins and ends by invoking Proust, is the lecture he gave when accepting the Nobel...