Get to know these characters well – they will surely prove to be worth every page of their three-book investment: Deeti, the young wife of a detached opium addict whose startling grey eyes see well beyond her vision; Zachary Reid, a mixed-race freeman from Baltimore...
Here's a moment of literary serendipity: on the morning my Bookslut interview with Luis Alberto Urrea went up, I happened to be finishing the galley of Thrity Umrigar’s latest novel, The World We Found. Amazingly, here's what appears in the penultimate paragraph on the very...
When Firdous Bamji – a veteran narrator – reads Amitav Ghosh’s haunting novel in his 'normal' voice, he's hardly memorable. But as soon as he 'becomes' the searching Piya, the sophisticated Kanai ("'[s]ay it to rhyme with Hawaii'"), the contemplative Nirmal, the grounded Nilima, and the many, many...
In early 1940s wartime Berlin, an official letter arrives for Otto and Anna Quangel with the unbearable news that their only son is dead. Anna immediately rejects "'those common lies ...
Nepal-born Manjushree Thapa, herself a peripatetic hybrid of East and West with an American education and Canadian ties, is one of a handful of Nepali authors successfully writing in English. This, her latest novel (and only her second in her almost two-decade writing history with seven titles...
Yu Hua is a grand master of subversion. Just as his title – China In Ten Words – promises, Yu “compress[es] the endless chatter of China today into ten simple words ...
This is one of those spectacular titles that the less you know about it, the better your read. The amazing levels of meaning contained in the title alone makes it worth your utmost attention. Of course, if you haven't been hiding under a rock (like me),...
Timing is everything: I'm convinced my just-got-back trip from Korea gave me an especially empathetic appreciation for poetry slam artist/writer/playwright Ed Bok Lee's latest collection. I just wandered some of those same streets! And I definitely had to read it at 38,000-feet cruising altitude between there...
Yu Hua's unforgettable tome requires a solid commitment in time and patience, yet your reward for finishing the final page will make your investment amply worthwhile. The opening paragraph begins with the end: "Baldy Li, our Liu Town's premier tycoon," sits contemplating his life on his...
* 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...
Before I let myself even open Michael Ondaatje's newest title, The Cat's Table, which hit shelves earlier this month, I was determined to read his previous novels that I had somehow missed. The realization that I have now earned access to Table is rather bittersweet as...
In less than a week, you can be holding 1Q84, Haruki Murakami's long-awaited spectacular title finally available in English, which hits shelves on October 25. You might choose to hold out until November 8 when the audible version is scheduled for release. All 944 pages (on paper...
Luis Alberto Urrea's 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for General Nonfiction reads like a heart-thumping thriller, complete with big cars and big guns, desperate men and boys, waiting women, and an enormous body count. That the story is true instantly turns it into a modern tragedy of epic...
Ha Jin has lived through difficult, defining events: the Cultural Revolution in his native China, military service that began when he was a young teenager, immigration and subsequent separation from home and family. On the page, he has vividly reproduced the repression of the Cultural...
Here are the two most important things I got out of Snow: 1. it definitely had memorable glimpses of Turkish social and cultural history that I had little to no knowledge of previously; 2. Orhan Pamuk is a clever, intelligent writer, which – given his array...
Here I go again starting with a book backwards … in the ending “Translator’s Note,” Paul Starkey writes, “Readers of Maryam’s Maze who are already familiar with the author’s short stories will quickly feel themselves at home in this more extended work, which again reveals...
*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...
In spite of the fierce, wrenching content of her books, Tahmima Anam in real life is a gentle, warm, incredibly youthful presence. We met in livetime a few years ago in Washington, DC, as her debut novel, A Golden Age, was winning major international awards,...
Tahmima Anam continues her outstanding Bengal Trilogy, which began with A Golden Age, her glowing 2008 debut that propelled Anam into a privileged literary circle filled with international accolades. From Rehana Haque, the protagonist mother in Age, Anam shifts her focus to the grown Haque...
Since 2002 Newbery winner Linda Sue Park’s latest title was published in November 2010, borders shifted (again) and the world recognized the birth of the newest nation, the Republic of South Sudan, on July 9 at midnight. The weekend announcement makes A Long Walk to Water almost...
