Identity Archives - Page 22 of 83

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...

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata [in Booklist]

16 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Besides sharing a Dominican background with titular Adana Moreau, Coral Peña seems rather miscast for first-time novelist Michael Zapata’s predominantly male cast. Having made her notable aural debut (serendipitously!) with Angie Cruz’s lauded Dominicana (2019), Peña’s sophomore performance feels more determined than inspired. Zapata’s novel flows through...

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...

The Case of the Reincarnated Client: A Vish Puri Mystery by Tarquin Hall [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Nearly seven long, long years have passed since the eminent Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator, has had a high-profile case. Utmost gratitude gushes, not only for his return, but for Sam Dastor’s in the fifth title in Tarquin Hall’s delectable Delhi-based mystery series. This time,...

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...

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...

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang and Adrien Gombeaud, illustrated by Ameziane, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

31 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lun Zhang was there during “the largest spontaneous gathering in all of Chinese history,” surrounded by “the joys and smiles of Beijing’s youth” hoping to achieve freedom and democracy. At 26, he was older than his student counterparts; he had “lived through the regime’s most...

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...

The Sky Is Blue with a Single Cloud by Kuniko Tsurita, translated by Ryan Holmberg [in Shelf Awareness]

24 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

An English-language debut, The Sky Is Blue with a Single Cloud is a label-defying collection of Kuniko Tsurita's gekiga – literally, "dramatic pictures," referring to more serious graphic work for adult audiences. Organized chronologically from 1966 to 1980, the historical compilation includes Tsurita's early magazine submissions as a...

Author Interview: Kelli Jo Ford [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Dreaming the Impossible Even before Kelli Jo Ford's debut, Crooked Hallelujah was released, it garnered accolades: the seventh chapter, "Hybrid Vigor," won the Paris Review's Plimpton Prize in 2019, and Ford's pre-publication manuscript won the 2019 Everett Southwest Literary Award from the University of Central Oklahoma. Ford is...

Inheritors by Asako Serizawa [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost

Pieces of Asako Serizawa's intriguing novel-in-interlinked-stories, Inheritors, have been published since 2005 and winning awards (O. Henry, Pushcart) since 2013. Her acknowledgements reveal "this book [took] so long to write," but her tenacity is a gift to readers. With 13 stories featuring five generations of...

The Yogini by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, translated by Arunava Sinha [in Booklist]

17 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian, Translation

Not yet married a year, Homi and her husband are passionately in love. Beyond being happy at home, Homi thrives at her high-power position at a television studio. The pair share a comfortable, compatible existence in Kolkata, occasionally interrupted by extended familial demands. And then Homi...

Bright by Duanwad Pimwana, translated by Mui Poopoksakul [in Booklist]

16 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Thai, Translation

“You stay here. I’m taking your brother over to Grandma’s. I’ll be back in a bit,” 5-year-old Kampol’s father promises. Just a few days ago, “something went down at his house”: Kampol’s mother disappeared, and now his father and not-yet-1-year-old baby brother are leaving. Most of...

Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario [in School Library Journal]

14 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Juleah del Rosario's sophomore novel-in-verse is a haunting elegy, revealed in the back-and-forth voices of two sisters. Rowena is the star soccer athlete, Ariana the artist who might not graduate. They're students at the same high school, but the older hardly acknowledges the younger; at...

Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel [in Booklist]

09 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History, W. Caleb McDaniel’s 2019 debut gets a 2020 aural adaptation, helmed by prolific Paul Heitsch, who adds solemn gravitas to an utterly compelling narrative. Born enslaved in 1818/1820 in Kentucky, Henrietta Wood was freed in 1848 and...

The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, Piper Kendrix Williams [in Booklist]

08 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In their joint introduction, four The College of New Jersey colleagues – three African American women, one gay white man, all PhD-ed – declare, “Toni Morrison is our greatest living historian about love, race, nation, and just about everything else of consequence.” The Nobel...

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...

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...

Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan [in Shelf Awareness]

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

For Meredith Talusan, transformation looks like this: "Sun Child," "Harvard Man," "Lady Wedgwood." In the nimbly titled Fairest, award-winning journalist Talusan shares an unflinching exploration of identity. "Mirrors were not just mirrors to me," she writes in her prologue, "but bridges made of light to fantastic...

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