Emily X.R. Pan melds east and west in a hybrid fantasy/reality novel inspired by two sets of star-crossed lovers: China’s Houyi and Chang’e (the Archer and the Moon Goddess) and Romeo and Juliet. In 1991, Hunter Yee and Luna Chang are 17-year-old seniors at Fairbridge...
Nghi Vo’s stupendous debut, The Chosen and the Beautiful, alchemized (and improved) The Great Gatsby by shifting narrative control to supporting character Jordan Baker. Vo dramatically gifts similarly transformative autonomy to her latest protagonist, Luli Wei, who is clearly a revisionist stand-in for legendary Asian American film...
Listeners familiar with Natalie Naudus’s performances – she’s amassed almost 200 narrating credits – will surely have begun to notice that she has two narrative modes for girlfriends: one with aural gravitas, the other (usually deemed “the pretty one”) pitched a few notes higher, reminiscent...
Casting an Asian American narrator for Asian American characters created by an Asian American author initially seems to be a promising decision, but Taiwanese American Natalie Naudus, though pleasant overall for Julie Tieu’s debut, isn’t consistently convincing with the multiple Asian languages in play. One...
Short stories can be the perfect antidote to these days of winter blues, pandemic panic, and cabin fever. Deesha Philyaw’s debut short-story collection – The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, a much-lauded, National-Book-Award-finalist – illuminates the lives of nine Black woman with a performance from Janina...
Before Jayci Lee’s latest even hit shelves, Lost/Hawaii Five-0 heartthrob Daniel Dae Kim optioned the rom-com as producer and star. Before Kim goes celluloid, narrator Natalie Naudus whets your appetite with this delectably sweet happily-ever-after affair. With his borrowed car broken down in tiny Weldon, California, celebrity food critic...
Yukiko Motoya – who’s won major literary awards in her native Japan – makes her English-language debut (Anglophone-enabled by Asa Yoneda) with a label-defying, eyebrow-raising, beguilingly entertaining collection. Six narrators – Natalie Naudus, Brian Nishii, Erin Bennett, Paul Michael Garcia, Tanya Eby, and Kate Mulligan...
