“After waking from my dream, I came back to reality. But my reality remains fictional… The most beautiful snow crystal in the world and the most beautiful word in the world still don’t exist. They don’t command any...
Book
We love books of all kinds and we especially love to share books written by Asian woman authors around the world. Have you read a book that touched you, a book that made you go ‘hmmm’, or even just an indulgent romance that made your cold autumn evening that much cozier?
Marisa Jue
Laksmi Pamuntjak: literary force of Indonesia talks of female ambiguity and “Asian literature” in the West
[agg-ad id=”14519″ align=”left”] When Laksmi Pamuntjak published her first volume of poems, Ellipsis, Herald UK selected it as one of the best books of 2005. She has written for Indonesian weekly...
Yeseul Park
Book Review: The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
“On the boat, we often wondered: Would we like them? Would we love them? Would we recognize them from their pictures when we first saw them on the dock?” It is hard to deny the importance of history. Knowledge of...
Book review: ‘Sarong Party Girls’ by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
“We don’t have any more time to waste! We are not young anymore, you know – Fann just turned twenty-seven, my twenty-seventh birthday is two months away and Imo’s is not far behind. If we don’t get married, engaged or...
Book Review: ‘One Hundred Shadows’ by Hwang Jungeun
“I saw a shadow in the woods. I didn’t know it was a shadow at first. I saw it slip through a thicket and followed it in, wondering if there was a path there, and thinking how familiar it looked. The woods grew more...
Book Review: ‘Out’ by Natsuo Kirino
“Garbage was a natural by-product of human life, and it was nobody else’s business what got thrown away or who did the throwing. Though when the time came, you had to be willing to accept the fact that you, too, would...
Book Review: ‘Do Not Say We Have Nothing’ by Madeleine Thien
“Remember what I say: music is the great love of the People. If we sing a beautiful song, if we faithfully remember all the words, the People will never abandon us. Without the musician, all life would be loneliness.”...
Book Review: ‘The Woman Warrior’ by Maxine Hong Kingston
“[My mother] said I would grow up a wife and a slave, but she taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa Mu Lan. I would have to grow up a warrior woman.” Maxine Hong Kingston is a giant within the Asian American...
Book Review: ‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang
“It’s your body, you can treat it however you please. The only area where you’re free to do just as you like. And even that doesn’t turn out how you wanted.” At the most basic level, The...