Dystopia Archives - Page 2 of 5

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

23 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Thai, Translation

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...

Five More to Go: Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police [in The Booklist Reader]

13 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Repost, Translation

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder Without names, these people, this island, could be anyone, anywhere. As fantastical as the premise of her latest anglophoned novel seems, Yoko Ogawa (The Housekeeper and the Professor, 2009) intends exactly that universality. Initially, small things disappeared...

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder [in Booklist]

12 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Without names, these people, this island, could be anyone, anywhere. As fantastical as the premise of her latest Anglophoned novel seems, Yoko Ogawa (The Housekeeper and the Professor, 2009) intends exactly that universality. Initially, small things disappeared – “Ribbon, bell, emerald, stamp.” What didn’t just...

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh [in Booklist]

26 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

The eerie chill factor proves unrelenting throughout Sophie Mackintosh’s 2018 debut, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and is further intensified by three formidable narrators who take turns revealing the dissolution of an isolated, splintered family. Grace, Lia, and Sky are three daughters – their...

Five More to Go: Margaret Atwood and Reneé Nault’s The Handmaid’s Tale [in The Booklist Reader]

16 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Lists, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Reneé Nault In the decades since its 1985 publication, Margaret Atwood’s dystopic classic has spawned audio, film, radio, theater, opera, ballet incarnations, and, most recently, the wildly popular television series (which veers significantly from the original, ahem). Given the evergreen...

The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood and Reneé Nault, illustrated by Reneé Nault [in Booklist]

15 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Given the evergreen veneration of Margaret Atwood’s dystopic classic that, since its 1985 publication, has spawned audio, film, radio, theater, opera, and ballet incarnations and, most recently, the wildly popular television series, this graphic novel was certainly inevitable. Canadian artist Reneé Nault is credited...

Letter to Survivors by Gébé, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

02 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, they were “that happy family”: two parents, two children, one dog, living in “the house of [their] dreams.” And then they added a coastal apartment and a mountain escape – traversed via luxury car, then adventure mobile – and then...

The Chancellor and the Citadel by Maria Capelle Frantz [in Booklist]

16 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

“The world’s falling apart,” young Olive sighs under a starry sky. “Some think it’s coming together,” the chancellor reminds her as she guides Olive home through the forest, subduing an angry beast midway. Cloaked in layers, her face obscured in hooded darkness, the chancellor protects...

An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim [in Booklist]

23 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Repost, Singaporean, Singaporean American

In 1981, Frank is about to fall victim to a deadly worldwide flu pandemic. In exchange for Frank’s recovery, girlfriend Polly time-travels 12 years into the future and commits to 32 months of bonded servitude. Their 1993 reunion plan goes awry when Polly lands in...

Out in the Open by Javi Rey, based on the novel by Jesús Carrasco, translated by Lawrence Schimel [in Booklist]

20 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Somewhere, a once fertile town has lost its “green and fragrant waves,” the riverbed dried to dust. Deep in a hole in the earth, a small, huddled body hides from shouting voices determined to expose him. Darkness and silence finally allow him to escape “the...

Severance by Ling Ma [in Library Journal]

25 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Candace Chen arrives in New York City post-college because "it seemed like the inevitable, default place to go." After a summer of wandering Manhattan wearing her dead mother's dresses – taking pictures and getting picked up – she unexpectedly falls into a publishing job. She...

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich [in Library Journal]

02 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

Twenty-six-year-old, four-months-pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker was adopted by Minneapolis liberals but has recently reconnected with her extended Ojibwe birth family. Reunion notwithstanding, the world is in dystopic collapse – evolution is in rapid reverse, the Church of the New Constitution has usurped control, the human...

The Emissary by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani [in Library Journal]

02 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

Japanese-born, Germany-based Tawada (Memoirs of a Polar Bear) writes facilely in both languages and creates incomparable award-winning fiction that defies easy labels. Tawada's latest in translation (smoothly rendered by Mitsutani, who also translated one of Tawada's earliest works, the three-storied The Bridegroom Was a Dog)...

The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Narrator Xe Sands delivers this Book with control, even detachment: the almost languid tone chillingly amplifies the hideous near-future Yuknavitch exposes in her highly anticipated follow-up to The Small Backs of Children. At 49, Christine is in her “last year until ascension,” an anachronistic term that...

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti

15 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2016, Young Adult Readers

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor [in School Library Journal]

14 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW At 16, Binti embarks on an interplanetary voyage to Oomza Uni, the galaxy's supreme institution of higher learning. As the first of her people offered such an opportunity, she leaves home without even warning her family of her departure. When the vessel is attacked by...

United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas + Author Interview [in Bookslut]

07 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American, Korean American, Repost

Alternate histories have been "a thing" for decades. Lauded titles are many, but World War II-related novels in which the so-called good guys don't win seem to have yielded quite a few bestsellers through the decades, including The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, Fatherland...

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign (vols. 1-2) by Takaya Kagami, illustrated by Yamato Yamamoto, storyboards by Daisuke Furuya, translated by Adrienne Beck

23 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Here's an intriguing blend of vampiric dystopia: "One day ...

All You Need Is Kill, original story by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, storyboards by Ryosuke Takeuchi, original illustrations by yoshitoshi ABe, art by Takeshi Obata, translated by Tetsuichiro Miyaki

16 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

See how long this post title is above? Well, apparently, I seem to be discovering this spectacular story (and it really, truly is!) in its umpteenth iteration. Better late than never, I must say, because I'm convinced that this manga rendition is the very best...

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

08 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Fiction

A famous actor, his 8-year-old co-star, and an in-training paramedic walk onto a Toronto stage (actually, the latter rushes on with great force) ...

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