“Koan Khmer” by Bunkong Tuon
Bunkong Tuon’s debut novel Koan Khmer is a coming of age story of a young Cambodian immigrant, Samnong Sok, who ultimately finds himself on a writer’s journey, not unlike the author himself.
“The Lantern of Lost Memories” by Sanaka Hiiragi
Now available in an English translation by Jesse Kirkwood, Sanaka Hiiragi’s The Lantern of Lost Memories, a story set in a photography studio that belongs in a space between the world of the living and the afterworld, is the most recent example of Japanese “comfort fiction”.
Excerpt from “When Friends Come From Afar: The Remarkable Story of Bernie Wong and Chicago’s Chinese American Service League” by Susan Blumberg-Kason
Bernie Wong was born in Hong Kong in 1943, but her story begins in South America. Her mother, Virginia Chia, was born and raised in Huacho, Peru, to a father named Carlos Chia, who had come from China to run a shipping business in South America, and a mother named Cristina Salinas who was half-Chinese…
“Teardrop” by Sue Amos
The island of Sri Lanka resembles a teardrop, also the title of Sue Amos’s latest novel, set in 1953 when the country was still called Ceylon. Teardrop is a murder mystery that weaves in both folklore and the beauty of the island.
“Everything We Never Had” by Randy Ribay
In 1930, a Filipino immigrant named Fermin Tobera was shot and killed by white men in Watsonville, California, an all-too-common and mostly unpunished hate crime in the US at a time when they weren’t even labeled as such. Randy Ribay uses this period and this murder as the starting point in his new young adult…
“Mirage” by Nahid Rachlin
Identical and inseparable twin sisters, Roya and Tala live in Tehran. When they fall pregnant around the same time, they dream of going through the same motherhood milestones together and raising their kids together, yet a freak accident destroys these dreams in a matter of moments. This is the backdrop of Nahid Rachlin’s latest novel,…
“Jamia’s Aapa Jaan: The Many Lifeworlds of Gerda Philipsborn” by Margrit Pernau
Gerda Philipsborn, Jewish and a part of the 1920s Berlin arts scene, developed a close friendship with a trio of Muslim Indian students. A decade later, she would move to India to join her friends at Jamia Millia Islamia, a university in Aligarh that was established in 1920 to boycott the colonial government’s educational institutions….
“Murder in the Maloo” by Qi Fanniu and Zhu Dagong
Paul Bevan is the one of the most prominent scholars of early 20th-century Shanghai and it’s thanks to him that English language readers have learned of the contributions of Chinese illustrators, writers, publishers and other artists in late-Qing and Republican-era Shanghai. A few years ago, he translated a novel titled The Adventures of Ma Suzhen:…
“From Pashas to Pokemon” by Maaria Sayed
Maaria Sayed is an Indian filmmaker whose experience ranges from London and Italy to South Asia and Korea. Her debut novel, From Pashas to Pokemon, is a delightful coming of age story largely set in a Muslim neighborhood of Mumbai and, as the title implies, traverses both old and new. The story follows a young…
“At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China” by Edward Wong
Thirty years ago, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn published their first book, China Wakes, to critical acclaim. The couple wrote of their five years reporting about China for The New York Times from 1988 to 1993. Other journalists reporting on China have followed suit and we’ve seen books by Jan Wong, Mike Chinoy, Frank Langfitt,…
“Woman of Interest: A Memoir” by Tracy O’Neill
Tracy O’Neill was adopted from South Korea in the 1980s and never thought to search for her birth mother until 2020 when the world seemed to stop. She had just landed a tenure-track position at Vassar and had broken up with a long-term boyfriend. With more time on her hands—teaching online and not leaving her…
“A Winding Line: Three Hebrew Poets” by Maya Bejerano, Sharron Hass and Anat Zecharia & “So Many Things are Yours” by Admiel Kosman
Hebrew is unique, an ancient tongue that was all but lost for millennia as a spoken language, but was revitalized in the late 19th century and is now the official language of Israel, a country of nine million. Despite this relatively small number of native speakers, Hebrew literature is robust, yet Hebrew literature in English…
“Death in the Air” by Ram Murali
Almost a hundred years ago, Agatha Christie published an Hercule Poirot mystery, Death in the Air, which takes place on a flight from Paris to London. It may not be her most famous, but debut author Ram Murali has recycled the title for his whodunnit set mainly in the foothills of the Himalayas near Rishikesh—where…
“A Cha Chaan Teng That Does Not Exist” by Derek Chung
Derek Chung is not only a prolific poet, novelist, and essayist, he’s also an acclaimed translator that has brought work from Li-Young Lee, Carl Sandburg, Williams Carlos Williams and others into Chinese. Now a new English translation of his poetry collection, A Cha Chaan Teng That Does Not Exist, from May Huang, brings back to…
“Shanghailanders” by Juli Min
The term “Shanghailander”, coined over a hundred years ago, referred to foreigners who lived in Shanghai’s French Concession or International Settlement. In her debut novel, Shanghailanders, Juli Min has reclaimed this term for contemporary use to include a wider spectrum of expatriates and to indicate, somewhat contrary to current narratives, that Shanghai remains—and will remain…
