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BookDragon Dystopia Tag

Saha by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang [in Booklist]

05 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Town was once a fish-farm village, but it’s now internationally known for the corporation that aggressively expanded it into a bustling city-state. Here, class stratification is impermeable. Su is a Citizen. Do-kyung is a Saha, an inconsequential resident of the crumbling Saha Estates who...

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng [in Booklist]

01 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Bird is 12. Home is a 10th-floor dorm apartment without a working elevator. His Harvard professor father has been demoted to clerical duties at the library. Since his mother, Margaret, left three years ago, Bird is called Noah, anything to disassociate from her since she’s...

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel [in Booklist]

24 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Emily St. John Mandel groupies will be especially tickled to discover Glass Hotel’s narrator Dylan Moore and Station Eleven’s Kirsten Potter are half the quartet that cipher her latest, in which four narrative strands connect almost five centuries. In 1912, the youngest son of a wealthy...

Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser [in Booklist]

30 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The monsters here are, of course, people, made terrifying by what Michelle de Kretser labels “three scary monsters – racism, misogyny, and ageism.” Subtitled “A Novel in Two Parts,” the notable Sri Lankan-born Australian de Kretser’s (The Life to Come, 2018) latest is indeed...

The Every by Dave Eggers [in Booklist]

27 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Dave Eggers’ voice-of-choice Dion Graham again convincingly ciphers the author’s newest white-woman protagonist, Delaney Wells, an employee of The Circle’s (2013) Mae Holland. Here the Circle has exploded into the Every, the world’s most ubiquitous conglomerate, which continues to develop manipulative mechanisms to subtly...

The Rooftop by Fernanda Trías, translated by Annie McDermott [in Shelf Awareness]

30 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation, Uruguayan

In the chilling, spare-but-oh-so-dense novel The Rooftop, Uruguyan writer Fernanda Trías introduces Clara – her name a sharp contrast to her uncertainty, her unknowing – as she recounts the life that she announces on the opening page "came to an end today." Once upon a time,...

Secret Life by Theo Ellsworth and Jeff VanderMeer, illustrated by Theo Ellsworth [in Booklist]

24 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

From the cover alone, it’s clear Theo Ellsworth’s visuals are unique, striking, and surreal. A sense of witnessing something unrecognizable resonates throughout, with bizarrely stylized images of people, beasts, and scenes surrounded by intricate backgrounds that might induce trypophobia in some. And yet, self-taught artist...

The Silence by Don DeLillo [in Booklist]

03 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

At under two hours, Don DeLillo’s latest is easily a straight-through listen. What happens during that short time proves mind-bogglingly far-reaching: a worldwide technological shutdown. Jim and Tessa are in flight from Paris to Newark, with evening plans to watch Super Bowl 2022 at Max...

I’m Waiting for You: And Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim, translated by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

As impressive as Kim Bo-Young's intriguing stories are, their literary provenance is equally entertaining. "I wrote 'I'm Waiting for You' for one person to read and one person to hear, with no ambitions of it ever being published," Kim reveals in her author's note. An...

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro [in Booklist]

02 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, British Asian, Fiction, Repost

With echoes of themes in his internationally lauded Never Let Me Go (2005) – that life can be manufactured, bartered, bought – Booker-ed, Nobel-ed, and knighted Kazuo Ishiguro presents a bittersweet fable about the human heart as “[s]omething that makes each of us special and...

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy [in Booklist]

30 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Fiction, Irish, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Seasoned narrator Barrie Kreinik showcases her prowess as a dialect coach as she embodies Charlotte McConaghy’s vast cast around the world from Australia to Ireland to Greenland, traversing quickly emptying terrains and oceans. Making her adult fiction debut, McConaghy introduces Franny Stone, an untethered...

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook [in Booklist]

08 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Veteran voice actor Stacey Glembowski – already seasoned with substantial science fiction experience – immediately commands Diane Cook’s (Man v. Nature) timely novel debut in which 20 desperate men, women, children abandon their depleting City lives to become the inaugural Community in the Wilderness State....

That Time of Year by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Translation

At a little more than 100 pages, That Time of Year by Marie NDiaye (Ladivine) might initially seem spare. The intriguing complexity, however, contained in her superb novel underscores again why she is one of France's most lauded contemporary writers, having received her country's highest...

Afterland by Lauren Beukes [in Shelf Awareness]

02 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, South African

"You can't imagine how much the world can change in six months." Oh, but yes we can! With remarkable prescience, Lauren Beukes’ Afterland takes on an "unprecedented global pandemic" with chilling results – and surprising comic relief threaded throughout. Six years after the success of Broken...

We Unleash the Merciless Storm by Tehlor Kay Mejia [in Booklist]

24 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Finishing what she so affectingly began, Kyla García returns to conclude Tehlor Kay Mejia’s high-octane duology in which the privileged world of Medio and the rebellious encampments of La Voz implode, with the inevitable showdown of Medio’s heir-apparent Mateo Garcia and his two wives –...

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia [in Booklist]

28 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Being born on the wrong side of the wall means Dani’s parents took impossible risks to give her every opportunity for a better life. Despite her indigent origins, well-forged documents granted Dani access to the elite Medio School for Girls; as top graduate, Dani’s...

The Test by Sylvain Neuvel [in Booklist]

08 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Iranian, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW No doubt that Sylvain Neuvel’s (Themis Files series) standalone novella is a thought-provoking, heartbeat-raising experience. As convincing as the narrative is on the page, Neil Shah alchemizes Neuvel’s words into a revelatory performance, infusing contagious energy and creating impressive resonance. Sometime in the not-so-distant future,...

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood [in Booklist]

19 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW In her September 16, 2019, cover article for Time magazine, Atwood recalls informing the showrunner for the Emmy-winning Hulu adaptation of her iconic The Handmaid’s Tale, “You absolutely cannot kill Aunt Lydia, or I will have your head on a plate.” Aunt Lydia, it...

Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad [in Booklist]

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Thai, Thai American

Slightly gravelly voiced Scottish actor Euan Morton takes immediate command here, crisply enunciating Bangkok-native, New-York based Pitchaya Sudbanthad’s ambitious debut. What initially reads like unrelated short stories reveals a broader overview of a city in constant flux, its past, present, and future represented by a...

In Celebration of Women in Translation Month: Asian Women Authors — Part II [in The Booklist Reader]

30 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Thai, Translation

This is the second of a two-part series. Click here for Part I. Last week, we shared a baker’s dozen of titles by Asian women writers, made accessible by dedicated, invaluable translators who continuously, miraculously enable anglophone readers in discovering, enjoying, and sharing books from around...

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About BookDragon

Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.

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