Christian Science Monitor Archives

How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo [in Christian Science Monitor]

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Filipina/o American, Nonfiction, Repost

Bracing cultural criticism flows from the pen of Elaine Castillo Provocative and pointed literary criticism in How to Read Now: Essays challenges people to become better, smarter readers. Boundless erudition and eloquent exasperation define Elaine Castillo’s debut nonfiction, How to Read Now, an incandescent collection of essays...

A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times by Meron Hadero [in Christian Science Monitor]

30 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Ethiopian, Ethiopian American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

From the particular to the universal: Cross-cultural stories A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times by Ethiopian American writer Meron Hadero highlights immigrant stories of dislocation and identity. Displacement – often by outside force, rarely by personal choice – haunts Meron Hadero’s superb debut short story...

Arsenic and Adobo [Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery 1] by Mia P. Manansala [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

When Lila Macapagal moves back to her small hometown, she has no idea she’ll have to solve a murder mystery in order to save her aunt’s restaurant. "Cozy mysteries," already a niche subgenre of crime fiction, contain yet another level of specialty: culinary cozy mysteries. For...

First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami offers a collection of imaginative short stories with skewed elements that his many fans are sure to applaud. The announcement of a new Haruki Murakami title inspires gleeful anticipation: Will there be music (classical, jazz, Beatles – yes), baseball (certainly), local watering...

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot [in Christian Science Monitor]

20 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

A chance to redo the past in Before the Coffee Gets Cold Time travel and café culture yields a lovely, wise brew in a translation of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s popular play-turned-novel. Originally debuting onstage in Japan, Before the Coffee Gets Cold won praise and awards for its playwright, Toshikazu Kawaguchi....

The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories by Caroline Kim [in Christian Science Monitor]

19 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Short Stories

Korean American experience resonates in The Prince of Mournful Thoughts The longing for connection, for belonging, is woven throughout a dozen short stories in Caroline Kim’s superlative debut collection. "There is so much I wish to make my daughter understand, but cannot,” an immigrant father muses...

The Son of Good Fortune by Lysley Tenorio [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

His name was chosen to bring good fortune. So far, it isn’t working. Lysley Tenorio’s novel The Son of Good Fortune explores the sorely tested bonds of a Filipino mother and her son living in the shadows in America. Eight years have passed since award-winning writer and...

Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, translated by Mike Fu [in Christian Science Monitor]

21 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, European, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Taiwanese, Translation

Stories of the Sahara celebrates a singular voice in travel writing Sanmao electrified Chinese readers when her travelogue “Stories of the Sahara” was published in 1976 – now it has been translated into English. She had three names; traveled to more than 55 countries; studied in Germany,...

Penguin Classics Adds Four Books by Asian Americans to the Canon [in Christian Science Monitor]

06 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Memoir, Repost, Young Adult Readers

With four books by Asian American authors, Penguin Classics finally recognizes a long-overlooked genre of American literary and cultural tradition. During the first week that the film adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club hit screens across the United States in 1993, I sat in...

Notes on a Shipwreck: A Story of Refugees, Borders, and Hope by Davide Enia, translated by Antony Shugaar [in Christian Science Monitor]

08 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Italian, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Whom to save, whom to let perish? The rescuers of refugees washing up on the Italian island of Lampedusa face an impossible choice, as memoirist and playwright Davide Enia describes in Notes on a Shipwreck: A Story of Refugees, Borders, and Hope “Calculate. It’s all you can...

Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution by Helen Zia [in Christian Science Monitor]

24 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost

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,...

The Tale of Cho Ung: A Classic of Vengeance, Loyalty, and Romance translated by Sookja Cho [in Christian Science Monitor]

16 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The Tale of Cho Ung introduces Korean classic tale to English speakers Despite being “the best-selling fictional narrative during the late Chosŏn period” (1392-1910) of pre-modern Korea, little is known about the provenance of The Tale of Cho Ung. The author remains unknown and its initial composition...

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung [in Christian Science Monitor]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'All You Can Ever Know' is a sensitive examination of transracial adoption Here’s a memoir by a transracial adoptee about being a transracial adoptee – and unless you're a transracial adoptee yourself, you're probably thinking, “eh, I'll pass.” And that would surely be a mistake. Because...

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen [in Christian Science Monitor]

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

'Killing Commendatore' is the latest evasive, magical, utterly unique novel by Murakami A famous painter succumbing to dementia living out his final days in a posh care facility. A wealthy, middle-aged white-haired man who lives alone in a mountainside white mansion. A motherless schoolgirl whose father...

What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan [in Christian Science Monitor]

13 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

'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...

Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China by Xiaolu Guo [in Christian Science Monitor]

06 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Chinese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'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...

Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu [in Christian Science Monitor]

21 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'Little Soldiers' examines the Chinese education system from the inside Born in Philadelphia, reared in a Houston suburb, Stanford- and Columbia-educated, journalist Lenora Chu has a resume that – at first glance – looks very American. But her “connection to China came by birthright”: she’s “a...

Letters to Memory by Karen Tei Yamashita [in Christian Science Monitor]

13 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

'Letters to Memory' tells the story of author Karen Tei Yamashita's World War II internment “I have no formed definition of this project except an intuition that you would listen and be attentive and somehow understand,” Karen Tei Yamashita writes in Letters to Memory, her sagacious follow-up...

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie [in Christian Science Monitor]

14 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Pakistani, Repost

'Home Fire' is an exquisite modern tragedy about families caught between religion, politics That Home Fire is among the recently announced 2017 Man Booker Dozen means it arrives stateside with quite the notable stamp of approval. The novel is considerably more affecting than that other longlist...

Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang [in Christian Science Monitor]

02 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

'Sour Heart' author Jenny Zhang illuminates the immigrant's struggles to belong “Lena Dunham is like my fairy godmother,” Jenny Zhang revealed in a recent interview with The Guardian, albeit one who tweets and emails with unsolicited offers of editorial help. In the often capricious world of...

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