Love Archives - Page 21 of 84

Then the Fish Swallowed Him by Amir Ahmadi Arian [in Shelf Awareness}

07 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Prolifically published in his native Farsi, Amir Ahmadi Arian makes his English-language debut with Then the Fish Swallowed Him, a disturbingly irresistible novel exposing the invalidity of truth and lies under a despotic regime. Growing up in a volatile, politically fractured society and losing both parents...

Dominicana by Angie Cruz [in Booklist]

02 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“The invisibility of the women, in particular of my community, fueled this desire to write the Dominican experience, the Latinx experience, the immigrant experience, the New York experience,” reveals Angie Cruz in an interview accessible only if you choose audio. Making her narrator debut, fellow...

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, translated by Morgan Giles [in Booklist]

31 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW “I did not live with intent, I only lived. But that’s all over now.” Kazu is dead, but his spirit can’t rest. As he wanders through Tokyo’s Imperial Gift Park – where he last lived as a homeless wanderer – memories, visions, and hauntings...

Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW “I am not well read, nor am I a craftswoman of language,” the Mumbai-based journalist/educator Shubhangi Swarup insists in an author’s note to her editor. And yet her debut novel will certainly be one of the most wondrous literary achievements to hit the shelves...

Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna, translated by Helge Dascher [in Booklist]

26 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cambodian, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The U.S.’s April, 1975, withdrawal from Vietnam enabled the so-called Vietnam War to spread into Laos and Cambodia, where Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime stormed Phnom Penh and dispersed its inhabitants – mostly to brutal labor camps – eliminating 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians....

Braised Pork by An Yu [in Booklist]

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

Chen Hang is facedown in the bathtub when his wife, Jia Jia, discovers his naked corpse. Married for four years, their intended “lifelong partnership” didn’t include love, at least not for each other. After vomiting her “insuppressible resentment and disgust,” Jia Jia finds a pencil...

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 –...

Little Family by Ishmael Beah [in Booklist]

23 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Ishmael Beah, who recounted his brutal experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone in his bestselling memoir, A Long Way Gone (2007), understands all too well the horrors that can befall children. Here his fictional “little family” numbers five, the two oldest still...

This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II by Andrew Fukuda [in School Library Journal]

20 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in European, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In 1935, two unlikely tweens are connected across the Atlantic as assigned – albeit initially unwilling – pen pals. Made to write a full page to Charlie after dismissing her because she's a girl, Alex soon succumbs to her epistolary charms; their letters continue for...

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha [in Booklist]

18 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW As former travel and culture editor for CNN in Seoul, U.S.-Hong Kong-South Korea-raised and Brooklyn-domiciled Frances Cha writes exactingly of what she knows in her first novel. With unblinking focus, she confronts some of the darkest consequences of contemporary gender inequity by targeting the...

Frankissstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson [in Library Journal]

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

Lake Geneva in 1816 is home (in two rented properties) to five English travelers, three made eternal through their writing, one among that trio renowned for creating (inhuman) life, literally. Mary Shelley conceived Frankenstein there, accompanied by her poet husband Percy Shelley, fellow poet Lord Byron,...

Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia + Author Interview [in Bloom]

10 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost

“We have to learn from history and stop repeating its mistakes” As the child of two Chinese refugees, Helen Zia can personally speak to the effects of displacement, separation, adaptation, and reinvention. In her memorable career as activist/journalist/writer/Asian American icon, Zia turns inward for the first time in...

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd [in Booklist]

05 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Japan’s literary superstar Mieko Kawakami (Ms Ice Sandwich, 2018) significantly expands her 2008 Akutagawa Prize novella, notably translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Her writer-wannabe protagonist’s names are prescient homages: Natsuko (summer child) references poet Ichiyō Higuchi, aka Natsuko Higuchi, who appears on the...

All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney [in School Library Journal]

03 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Jordanian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

For Allie Abraham, "hiding is easy: reddish-blond hair, pale skin, hazel eyes," in other words – white. That she looks "textbook Circassian…from the Caucasus region. (Hey, they don't call it Caucasian for nothing)," is her ethnic inheritance from her immigrant Circassian Jordanian history professor father....

Friend by Nam-nyong Paek, translated by Immanuel Kim [in Booklist]

02 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, North Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW As a Superior Court judge, among Jeong Jin Wu’s most difficult tasks is to resolve divorce petitions and face “the burden of having to deal with another family’s misery.” His latest case involves an opera celebrity and factory worker desperate to terminate their almost-10-year...

Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry [in Booklist]

28 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW British TV-film-stage-even-video-games-actor/comedian/novelist Stephen Fry is a consummate storyteller. Yes, he’s got multiple bestsellers on the page, including this latest: choosing from the godly Greek pantheon certainly provided divine inspiration, replete with the utmost in family dysfunction including bed-hopping (although, who needs beds?!), Sisyphean feats...

Garden by the Sea by Mercè Rodoreda, translated by Maruxa Relaño [in Booklist]

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

Set in 1920s Catalonia, the permeability of social classes – upstairs/downstairs style – gets played out in a Spanish seaside villa. The gardener, who has outlasted multiple “masters” over decades, narrates “six summers and one terrible winter” from when Barcelona almost-newlyweds take possession until the...

Reproduction by Ian Williams [in Booklist]

21 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Canadian, Caribbean American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Everything here sounds off-kilter – on purpose. Discomfort pervades the reading, whether conversations are awkwardly not-quite-synched between speakers, or sentences spoken in an (unnamed) Caribbean island patois are made purposefully wooden and German words and phrases become virtually unintelligible. That jagged performance, however, seems integral...

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby [in Booklist]

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

Laura Ruby’s (Bone Gap, 2015) narrator – her name eventually revealed as Pearl – is dead. Pearl’s primary object of attention is not: Frankie, who’s 14 in 1941, is a “half orphan” relegated to a Chicago orphanage with her siblings by their living Italian immigrant father,...

The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah [in Booklist]

13 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Palestinian American, Repost

Afaf Rahman, the principal of suburban Chicago’s Nurrideen School for Girls, takes a few minutes alone for prayers, until gunshots shatter her peace. Palestinian American Sahar Mustafah’s first novel opens with the terror of a school shooter and concludes with Afaf’s eventual return to her...

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