Souvankham Thammavongsa has come a long way from Nong Khai refugee camp in Thailand in which she was born in 1978. Her family, originally from Laos, were able to settle in Canada when she was a year old.
As Asian-American writers are increasingly considered mainstream, populate “best books” and “books to watch” lists, and receive acclaim from both critics and the general public, there has been a rediscovery of works of some of the early pioneers. Louis Chu’s Eat a Bowl of Tea, just re-released by University of Washington Press as part of…
When Lana Lee adds a catering service to her family’s noodle restaurant in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, it’s not what she expected. At a birthday party for family friend Donna Feng, nanny Alice Kam is found dead in the outdoor swimming pool. It’s not an accident, as bruises are found around Alice’s neck and…
Perhaps because it transcends language and even thought, there is something about food that both reinforces and crosses culture. Food has been a cultural and emotional touchstone for Nina Mingya Powles since her earliest days.
The world is perhaps changing when translations from Chinese feature as the first volume in a series of just about anything. Two Lines Press, an independent publisher based in San Francisco, has recently launched the Calico Series of translated literature. “Each Calico is a vibrant snapshot that explores one aspect of the present moment, offering…
When Sophie Cairns’s parents announced they were leaving Hong Kong, where she was born and raised, she vowed to return. A teenager, biracial and fluent in Cantonese, she never felt like she belonged in the UK, and longed for the Hong Kong of her childhood.
At first glance, the only thing linking the stories in Rebecca Otowa’s new book, The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper, is that they all take place in Japan. Yet although they span 17th-century Edo to the present day, two themes recur in most: women’s hardships and the fears of ageing. It quickly becomes clear how, in…
Despite the rise in diversity in Young Adult literature, not least stories by Asian writers, there’s still a dearth of stories starring strong Asian males, perhaps due to the fact that most YA authors are women.
When Emily Clements finds herself alone in Vietnam after her best friend suddenly departs for Australia, she tries to make the best of her opportunity to see Southeast Asia. Only nineteen, Clements quickly picks up the language and goes out of her way to meet Hanoians. This memoir of her year in Vietnam is not,…
Early in The Aosawa Murders, Riku Onda writes that “it’s impossible to ever really know the truth behind events,” setting the tone of the mystery surrounding a horrible mass murder in 1970s Japan in which seventeen people are poisoned by cyanide after drinking a toast with sake and soft drinks. What starts as a jovial…
When Chi Pang-yuan was a young girl, her father Chi Shiying was wanted by warlord Zhang Zuolin and his son, Zhang Xueliang. The crime was siding with a rival general, Guo Songling, at a time when the Republic was still relatively young and northeast China in constant turmoil. For most of her childhood and teenage…
The story of the Jewish refugees in Asia during World War II almost always centers on Shanghai. Plenty of books, movies, and plays tell how twenty thousand German and Eastern European Jews found their way to Shanghai when most of the world had closed their borders to Jews. But there was another place in Asia…
There are many novels by Western authors sojourning in Asia. Stories that go the other way around are as rare as hens’ teeth.
In 1942, Jewish refugee Max Faerber opened Paragon Book Gallery in Shanghai. Faerber had worked for a newspaper in Vienna before he fled the Nazis for the brighter shores of Shanghai. During his first few years in China, Faerber put his newspaper skills to use and managed a German Jewish newspaper, one of many publications…
Chan Ho-kei has worked as a software engineer and video game designer, and his knowledge of the latest technology shines through in his new high-tech thriller, Second Sister, his second novel to be translated into English.