Family Archives - Page 24 of 144

Igifu by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Jordan Stump [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW A Rwandan exile living in France, Scholastique Mukasonga pulled from her extraordinary life to write two notable memoirs, Cockroaches and The Barefoot Woman (a 2019 National Book Award Translated Literature finalist). Autobiographical elements continue to haunt her exquisite collection, Igifu, through five wrenching stories. Born in 1956, Mukasonga had a...

The Marriage Game by Sara Desai [in Booklist]

27 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Soneela Nankani continues to grow her resume as the South Asian American rom-com narrator-of-choice, once again convincingly transforming truculently mismatched sparks into eternally burning flames. In Canadian Sara Desai’s debut, Nankani introduces sparring partners, Layla and Sam, suddenly forced to share a San Francisco office...

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh [in Library Journal]

26 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Arya Sagar, who has dozens of Indian/South Asian audio credits, enhances Amitav Ghosh’s ("Ibis" trilogy) already penetrating around-the-world mythic quest with his mellifluous narration, especially heightened with (mostly) agile adjustments for regional accents. Ghosh’s peripatetic hero, Deen Dutta, is an earnest Brooklyn-based rare books dealer,...

A World Between by Emily Hashimoto [in Booklist]

25 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian American, Japanese American, Repost

Eleanor and Leena meet in 2004 in a Boston college-dorm elevator. Eleanor is a hapa Californian – her mother is white, her father Japanese American. Leena’s traditionally immigrant Indian American family is a few towns over in Lowell. That fall semester is spent intensely falling,...

Happiness Will Follow by Mike Hawthorne [in Booklist]

23 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Puerto Rican, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Born Michael Anthony Hawthorne, his last name was “swiftly pilfered from [his] father” by his Puerto Rican mother “to keep [him] safe in ways she never was.” Yet surviving into adulthood was a near-superhuman feat: his single mother’s fierce love came with horrific stipulations...

My Favorite Memories by Sepideh Sarihi, illustrated by Julie Völk, translated by Elisabeth Lauffer [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Iranian, Repost, Translation

A globally collaborative trio – Iranian German author Sepideh Sarihi, Austrian artist Julie Völk, and U.S. translator Elisabeth Lauffer – present lucky audiences My Favorite Memories, a poignant, hopeful journey of transition and relocation. "I was brushing my hair when Papa came in and told...

Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Ultimately, Inferno is a love story: raw, unfiltered, wrenching, lifesaving. Catherine Cho, a Korean American literary agent living in London, makes her debut with a scorching memoir about the postpartum psychosis that nearly destroyed her – but didn't. On November 4, 2017, Cho and husband, James,...

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...

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist]

17 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The magic happens here on every page, the perfection personified by debut author/artist Trung Le Nguyen’s autobiographical homage to the infinite power of storytelling. The opening page ingeniously distinguishes three interwoven narratives with three color palettes: red is the urgent now, about young Tiến...

Luci Soars by Lulu Delacre [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

With more than three dozen publishing credits, bilingual author/illustrator Lulu Delacre (Us, in Progress) knows how to balance text and art to achieve memorable literary results. In Luci Soars, Delacre introduces a girl whose noticeable difference – she doesn't have a shadow – draws out...

Mujirushi: The Sign of Dreams by Naoki Urasawa, translated by John Werry [in Booklist]

13 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Kamoda can’t stop making detrimental decisions: dodging taxes results in losing the family’s sandals business, agreeing to mass-manufacture caricature masks of a U.S. presidential candidate (who looks surprisingly like Trump) takes everything else. Kamoda’s wife has already fled, leaving their daughter, Kasumi, as the only voice...

Moms by Yeong-shin Ma, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

10 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Experiencing the tedious difficulty of household chores, Yeong-shin Ma writes in his must-not-skip author’s note, is what made him “think more deeply about [his mother] and her life.” That empathic appreciation inspired him to present her with an expensive notebook, requesting, “If you want...

Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir by Bishakh Som [in Booklist]

07 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American

Earlier this year, Bishakh Som debuted her dazzling graphic collection, Apsara Engine, the genesis of which is found here – inseparably entwined with Som’s own unique origin story. Som introduces herself in a narrative frame, bordering the memoir’s beginning and end: “I wanted to clue...

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi [in Booklist]

06 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

Following her spectacularly lauded, bestselling historical and ancestral debut, Homegoing (2016), Yaa Gyasi turns to the contemporary, tracing the dissolution of a Ghanaian immigrant family. By the time Gifty leaves Alabama for Harvard, she’s resolved to “build a new Gifty from scratch” by shedding the...

The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, translated by Arunava Sinha [in Shelf Awareness]

05 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

As spare as it might initially seem, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay's wickedly entertaining novel, The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die, manages smoothly to illuminate gender inequity, cultural biases, socioeconomic disparity, and familial dysfunction through a three-generational ghost story. At 18, Somlata is wed to her 32-year-old husband, the "blissfully...

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa [in Shelf Awareness]

04 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Palestinian, Palestinian American, Repost

Returning to the Palestinian multi-generational epic format that made her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin (2010), an international bestseller, Susan Abulhawa's haunting Against the Loveless World features another extended Palestinian clan enduring exile, surviving persecution, and (sometimes) cheating death. Abulhawa's compelling cipher is a woman with...

Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran [in Booklist]

03 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW What you might miss if you opt for the audiobook is a rather unexpected table of contents page, on which every chapter title is a (western) literary classic, from The Picture of Dorian Gray to The Iliad. Books, indeed, guide debut author Phuc Tran’s life, especially as...

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [in Booklist]

30 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Brit Bennett was widely awarded for The Mothers (2016), and her highly-anticipated sophomore title – regardless of medium – won’t disappoint. With exacting nuance, narrator Shayna Small immediately distinguishes one Vignes twin sister from the other. Desiree, the “fidgety twin...

Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham [in Booklist]

29 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

Nigerian-born, Iowa Writers’ Workshop-MFA-ed Tola Rotimi Abraham’s devastating debut covers almost two decades of a Lagos family navigating dysfunction and trauma. The comfortable lives of twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike and younger brothers Andrew and Peter disintegrate when their father falls victim to a financial...

145th Street: Short Stories by Walter Dean Myers [in School Library Journal]

28 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW This 20th-anniversary edition features a 10-reader cast performing the original 10 stories, with additional "Bonus Content" that includes a dozen "Tributes" by literary luminaries, including Christopher Myers, Lois Lowry, and Jason Reynolds, extolling the late, great Walter Dean Myers's enduring legacy to diverse children's...

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