Library Journal Archives - Page 16 of 17

The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Rebecca Copeland [in Library Journal]

01 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Award-winning Japanese crime fiction writer Natsuo Kirino (Out; Grotesque) contributes to the latest installment of the "The Myths" series, originally published by Britain's Canongate, in which contemporary writers retell myths. Previous volumes have included Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus and...

Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw [in Library Journal]

15 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Chinese, Fiction, Malaysian, Repost, Southeast Asian

* STARRED REVIEW Think of Tash Aw's third novel as an ingenious game called "How To Be a Billionaire." A how-to guide is interspersed with 30 rules that also serve as chapters, e.g., "Move to Where the Money Is," "Always Rebound After Each Failure," "Strive To...

Sandalwood Death by Mo Yan, translated by Howard Goldblatt [in Library Journal]

07 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

This recent novel-in-translation by the 2012 Nobel Laureate Mo Yan, originally published in China in 2004, embodies a labyrinthine web of changing alliances and terrifying vengeance. Set during the Boxer Rebellion, the turn-of-the-20th-century Chinese uprising against Western imperialism, it features pivotal figure Sun Meiniang, who...

Lenin’s Kisses by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas [in Library Journal]

02 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Yan Lianke’s latest (Dream of Ding Village, Serve the People!) arrives superbly translated by Duke professor Carlos Rojas and auspiciously stamped with China’s Lao She Literary Award. Welcome to Liven, a mountainous haven populated by the disabled who enjoy bountiful lives, so remote as to have avoided governmental...

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng [in Library Journal]

17 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Malaysian, Repost, Southeast Asian

* STARRED REVIEW Like his debut, The Gift of Rain (2007), Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng's second novel is exquisite and, like Gift, arrives stateside with Booker Prize longlist approval. Recently retired judge Teoh Yun Ling has at most a year before she will lose all language...

Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman [in Library Journal]

15 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Memoir, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

* STARRED REVIEW The recipient of international accolades – including Canada’s coveted Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction (2010) for its original Canadian debut in French – this extraordinary first novel unfolds like ethereal poetry. The enigmatic title means “a small stream and, figuratively, a flow, a discharge—of...

The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen [in Library Journal]

15 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese American

The 2,500-page, 18th-century classic, Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, is regarded as China’s most important work of fiction. Pauline A. Chen (Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas, for middle-grade readers) tackles the daunting task of adapting the revered original text, and her literary...

Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City by Dung Kai-cheung, translated by Dung Kai-cheung, Anders Hansson, and Bonnie S. McDougall [in Library Journal]

15 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

First published in 1997 – as an indirect response to the Hong Kong handover – Atlas marks Hong Kong native Dung’s English debut in translation. A self-described “verbal collection of maps” imagines the reclamation of a future city of Victoria (Hong Kong) through maps, memories,...

Flesh by Khanh Ha [in Library Journal]

15 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Flesh, a turn-of-the-20th-century debut novel set mostly in Hanoi, begins and ends with gruesome beheadings. Bearing witness to both executions is Tài, a poor teenage village boy quickly forced into manhood. In an effort to reclaim his father’s severed head and finance an auspicious burial, Tài...

The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura, translated by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates [in Library Journal]

15 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Handpicked by Nobel Laureate Kenzaburō Ōe for his eponymous Ōe Prize in 2009, Nakamura – who has also previously garnered many of Japan’s other top awards (Noma Literary New Face Prize, the coveted Akutagawa Prize) – makes his Stateside debut-in-translation. Disguised as fast-paced, shock-fueled crime fiction,...

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung [in Library Journal]

01 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

As Janie weeps over her first-ever separation from her mother, who is about to give birth, her grandmother admonishes her with the grave responsibility Janie must bear for her new sibling. "In our family ...

Drifting House by Krys Lee [in Library Journal]

27 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, North Korean, Repost, Short Stories

* STARRED REVIEW Krys Lee, whose peregrinations originated and are currently paused in Korea with formative stopovers in the U.S. and England, infuses the nine stories of her breathtaking debut with the consequences of dislocation – whether forced because of war, or chosen by virtue of...

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel [in Library Journal]

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW At the core of 1Q84 is a spectacular love story about a girl and boy who briefly held hands when they were both 10. That said, with the fiercely imaginative Murakami as author, the story’s exposition is gloriously labyrinthine: Welcome “into this enigma-filled world...

Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin [in Library Journal]

15 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In an introductory galley letter, National Book Award winner Ha Jin (Waiting, 1999) announces his intent to reclaim American missionary Minnie Vautrin’s heroism during the 1937 Nanjing massacre: “She suffered and ruined herself helping others, but she became a legend. At least her story has...

This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park [in Library Journal]

15 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

Set in postwar South Korea, where tradition is challenged by the eye-blinking changes erupting from a rapidly evolving modernity, Park’s (Shakespeare’s Sonnets) novel is essentially a triangulated love story involving wealthy and stunning Soo-Ja who dreams of becoming a diplomat in a brave new world,...

An Empty Room: Stories by Mu Xin, translated by Toming Jun Liu [in Library Journal]

01 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

With 20-plus books published in Taiwan and China, writer/painter Mu finally makes his English debut with a collection of 13 stories he chose from three previous titles. The result is, in a word, uneven. Standouts outshine the less than memorable, perhaps making the latter seem that...

The Paradise Bird Tattoo (or, Attempted Double-Suicide) by Choukitsu Kurumatani, translated by Kenneth J. Bryson [in Library Journal]

16 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

A major Japanese prize-winning book (Naoki, 1998) and film (Akame shijūya taki shinjū misui, 2003; in English, Akame 48 Waterfalls), Paradise is an unflinching meditation on late-20th-century disconnection. Middle-aged Ikushima, once again a self-described “corpse” in shoes and suit, recalls his drifting life 12 years ago: after...

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin, translated by Chi-Young Kim [in Library Journal]

15 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW The Korean title of this indelible novel, Omma rul put’ak hae, contains a sense of commanding trust that is missing in its English translation: “I entrust Mommy [to you].” That trust...

Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke, translated by Cindy Carter [in Library Journal]

15 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Censored in China, the latest novel in English translation from Yan Lianke (Serve the People!) is a brutal morality tale of a country undergoing transition; the citizens are mere “dogs, or chickens, or ants crushed underfoot” in a larger-than-life tragedy. China’s plan to fill its...

African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900-1960 by Charlene Regester [in Library Journal]

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost

Charlene Regester (African & Afro-American studies, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill) documents the lives and careers of nine African American actresses working before the Civil Rights era whose “contributions to mainstream cinema have been either minimized or erased in the histories of Hollywood cinema.” Madame...

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