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Stealing Benefacio's Roses
By Martin Prechtel. 2002
Following the acclaimed Secrets of The Talking Jaguar and Long Life, Honey in the Heart, this is an expansive, lyrical…
novel in the tradition of indigenous oral storytelling. Based on the author's many years of living in a Guatemalan village, Stealing Benefacio's Roses interweaves dramatic recountings of village life and the political horrors of civil war with lyric retellings of sacred Mayan myths. The story shifts expertly from timeless, with archetypal characters like Raggedy Boy and the goddess known as the Water-Skirted Beauty, to timely in the book's striking first-person narrative set in the 1980s. Prechtel shows how ancient myths can become a part of life for everyone and help nurture spiritual survival in the modern world. Though it comes third in sequence with the author's other two books, Stealing Benefacio's Roses also stands on its own as a classic work of spiritual seeking and adventure.Charlie Chan Is Dead 2
By Jessica Hagedorn, Elaine Kim. 2004
More than a decade after its initial publication, the groundbreaking anthology Charlie Chan Is Dead remains the best available source…
for contemporary Asian American fiction. Edited by acclaimed novelist and National Book Award nominee Jessica Hagedorn, Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World brings together forty-two fresh, fascinating voices in Asian American writing--from classics by Jose Garcia Villa and Wakako Yamauchi to exciting new fiction from Akhil Sharma, Ruth Ozeki, Chang-Rae Lee, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Monique Truong. Sweeping in background and literary style, from pioneering writers to newly emerging voices from the Hmong and Korean communities, these exceptional works celebrate the full spectrum of Asian American experience and identities, transcending stereotypes and revealing the strength and vitality of Asian America today.Bit Rot
By Douglas Coupland. 2016
Bit Rot, a new collection from Douglas Coupland that explores the different ways 20th-century notions of the future are being…
shredded, is a gem of the digital age. Reading Bit Rot feels a lot like bingeing on Netflix... you can't stop with just one."Bit rot" is a term used in digital archiving to describe the way digital files can spontaneously and quickly decompose. As Coupland writes, "Bit rot also describes the way my brain has been feeling since 2000, as I shed older and weaker neurons and connections and enhance new and unexpected ones." Bit Rot the book explores the ways humanity tries to make sense of our shifting consciousness. Coupland, just like the Internet, mixes forms to achieve his ends. Short fiction is interspersed with essays on all aspects of modern life. The result is addictively satisfying for Coupland's legion of fans hungry for his observations about our world. For almost three decades, his unique pattern recognition has powered his fiction, and his phrase-making. Every page of Bit Rot is full of wit, surprise and delight.From the Hardcover edition.The Innocent Party
By Aimee Parkison. 2012
"Aimee Parkison most often begins softly, slowly stripping away each layer of social interaction to get at what is numinous…
and frightening and necessary about living in the real world. These are stories both about the difficulty and the intense suddenness of human connection, about the profound link that exists between being in love and being alone."-Brian EvensonFrom "The Glass Girl":On certain evenings in dark motels, she could transform her lip into the edge of the bottle, imagining her face was made of amber glass and the men paused above her only to take a drink of breath. Over the years, men drank and drank until there were only two sips left inside. They began sucking the air out of the glass that grew warm in the wrong places because of heat radiating off their hands. The men's breath along with white feathers fell over autumn winds drifting through open windows.In this collection, Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize-winner Aimee Parkison's characters struggle to understand what happens when the innocent party becomes the guilty party. With magical realist flair, secrets are aired with dirty laundry, but the stains never come clean. Carol Anshaw writes, "Aimee Parkison offers a distinct new voice to contemporary fiction. Her seductive stories explore childhood as a realm of sorrows, and reveal the afflictions of adults who emerge from this private geography."Aimee Parkison has an MFA from Cornell University. She is associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches creative writing.The Strength of Bone
By Lucie Wilk. 2013
An Amazon.ca Best Book of 2013: Top 100/Editors' Pick"A gorgeous debut."-JOSEPH BOYDEN, author of Through Black Spruce and The OrendaAt…
the hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, Bryce is learning to predict the worst. Racing heart: infection, probably malaria. He'll send Iris for saline. Shortness of breath? TB. Another patient rolled to the ward. And the round swellings, the rashes with dimpled centres, the small rough patches on a boy's foot? HIV. Iris will make him comfortable. They'll move on.Then there will be sleeplessness, rationed energy, a censuring of hope: the doctor's disease. Iris sees that one all the time.Henry Bryce has come to Blantyre to work off the grief he feels for his old life, but he can't adjust to the hopelessness that surrounds him. He relies increasingly upon Sister Iris's steady presence. Yet it's not until an accident brings them both to a village outpost that Bryce realizes the personal sacrifices Iris has made for her medical training, or that Iris in turn comes to fathom the depth of Henry's loss.The Strength of Bone is the story of a Western doctor, a Malawian nurse, and the crises that push both of them to the brink of collapse. With biting emotion and a pathological eye for detail, novelist and medical doctor Lucie Wilk demonstrates how, in a place where knowledge can frustrate as often as it heals, true strength requires the flexibility to let go.Advance Praise for The Strength of Bone"In supple, beautiful prose, Lucie Wilk recounts a doctor's struggle with technology and faith, and with the mysteries of death and love ... The Strength of Bone is an extraordinary look at the clash of worlds."-ANNABEL LYON, author of The Golden Mean and The Sweet GirlLucie Wilk grew up in Toronto and completed her medical training in Vancouver. Her short fiction has been nominated for the McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize Anthology, longlisted for a CBC Canada Writes literary prize, and has appeared in Descant, Prairie Fire and Shortfire Press. She is working toward an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. She practices medicine and lives with her husband and two children in London, UK.Alphabet
By Kathy Page. 2014
"Simply an epiphany."-Kirkus, starred reviewSimon Austen has the names people have called him tattooed all over his body. Waste of…
Space. Bastard. A Threat to Women. Murderer. Facing a lifetime behind bars and subjected to new therapies for sexual reprogramming, Simon finds himself plunged into a terrifying process of self-reconstruction. But how much, in the end, can a man really change? Darkly compelling and deeply moving, Alphabet is a psychological exploration of one man's uncertain and often-harrowing journey towards rehabilitation."Intense, revealing, challenging and above all riveting ... I kept saying to myself, how could she know this?"-Erwin James, convicted murderer, author of A Life Inside: A Prisoner's Notebook"Sometimes novelists go too far-and sometimes they manage to demonstrate that too far is the place they needed to go."-Time Out UKPraise for Kathy Page"Her unforgettable prose is moody, shape-shifting, provocative and always as compelling as a strong light at the end of a road you hesitate to walk down...but will."- Amy Bloom, author of Where the God of Love Hangs Out"Marvellously well-crafted ... I can't remember the last time I was so compelled, impressed and unsettled by the emotional world of a novel."- Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the VelvetSwastika Night
By Daphne Patai, Katharine Burdekin. 1985
Published in 1937, twelve years before Orwell's 1984, this novel projects a totally male-controlled fascist world that has eliminated women…
as we know them. They are breeders, kept as cattle, while men in this post-Hitlerian world are embittered automatons, fearful of all feelings, having abolished all history, education, creativity, books, and art. Not even the memory of culture remains. The plot centers on a "misfit" who asks, as readers must, "How could this have happenned?" Ann J. Lane calls the novel a "brilliant, chilling dystopia." "This is a powerful, haunting vision of the inner and outer worlds of male violence."-Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, 1884-1933Spider Woman's Granddaughters
By Paula Gunn Allen. 1989
These 24 compelling and bleakly evocative narratives compiled by Allen, a professor of Native American studies at the University of…
California, all stress the theme of loss: loss of identity, loss of culture, loss of personal meaning. By juxtaposing traditional stories with contemporary tales, Allen allows readers to see how the same themes, values and perceptions have endured through the centuries, "testaments to cultural persistence, to a vision and a spiritual reality that will not die." Echoes of the traditional "Oshkikwe's Baby," about an old witch who steals babies, can be found in two stories. In Louise Erdrich's "American Horse," a white social worker separates a boy from his mother for his own "good," to the anguish of mother and son.- Publishers WeeklyFrom Wonso Pond
By Samuel Perry, Kang Kyong-Ae. 2009
"From Wonso Pond is an astonishing achievement of a young author whose life and work ended far too soon. Here,…
we have two girls and two boys, four hearts and two roads. From a colonized Korea, Kang sets the stage for the tragic birth of two rival nations. John Dos Passos and George Orwell may have had a Korean sister yet."--Min Jin Lee, author of Free Food For Millionaires "A vibrant account of the travails of Japanese colonialism as experienced by workers and women by the pioneering feminist writer of the Korean left. --Andre Schmid, author of Korea Between Empires"How refreshing it is to have a good old-fashioned story, told without narrative tricks or artifice. Kang Kyong-ae's From Wonso Pond is a powerful novel that charts the struggles of her impassioned characters as they learn to live, work, and love. The questions Kang poses and the issues she tackles are as universal as they are enduring. This essential work should be required reading for anyone interested in Korean history and literature."--Sung J. Woo, author of Everything Asian: A Novel"Anyone who wants to understand the terrible, wrenching conflicts that Koreans have endured and transcended in the past century could well begin with Kang Kyong-ae's brilliant, poignant, masterful novel. Her penetrating eye and sensibility fall on individuals that conventional writers miss--the poor, the frail, the heterodox, the women. To have a voice like this restored and rendered into English with such deftness by Samuel Perry is truly a major achievement." --Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago History Department Chairman and the author of The Origins of the Korean WarA classic revolutionary novel of the 1930s and the first complete work written by a woman before the Korean War to be published in English. From Wonso Pond transforms the love triangle between three protagonists into a revealing portrait of love and labor set against the backdrop of Japan's colonization of Korea.In a plot rich with Dickensian overtones, this novel paints a vivid picture of life in what is now North Korea through the eyes of Sonbi; her childhood neighbor, Ch'otchae; and a restless law student, Sinch'ol, as they journey separately from a small, impoverished village ruled by the lecherous landlord to the port city of Inch'on.But life is hardly easier there, as Sonbi wears herself out boiling silk threads twelve hours a day while Ch'otchae and Sinch'ol become overworked and underpaid dockworkers. All three become involved with underground activists, fighting oppression and colonial rule.Kang Kyong-ae (1906-1944) was born in Japan-ruled Korea and spent much of her adult life writing from her home in neighboring Manchuria. She is the author of many short stories and the novel Mothers and Daughters, which was also serialized in Korean journals during the 1930s. Kang died at the age of thirty-nine.Samuel Perry is an assistant professor of East Asian studies at Brown University.Cooked Up
By Ben Okri, Pippa Goldschmidt, Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni, Elaine Chiew. 2015
Food can bring together families, communities, and cultures. It is the essence of life and yet our relationships with one…
another can be most fraught at the dinner table. This perpetually fascinating subject has inspired a unique collection of fiction--including flash fiction, essay, short stories, and even a "stoku" (amalgam of short story and haiku)--from a wonderfully diverse and international group of authors.The authors in the anthology include Elaine Chiew, Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni, Rachel J. Fenton, Diana Ferraro, Vanessa Gebbie, Pippa Goldschmidt, Sue Guiney, Patrick J. Holland, Roy Kesey, Charles Lambert, Krys Lee, Stefani Nellen, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Ben Okri, Angie Pelekidis, Susannah Rickards, and Nikesh Shukla.Elaine Chiew is a London-based writer who has won several prizes for her short stories and flash fiction. She was included in One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories. Many of her stories revolve around food.Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author, poet, activist, and teacher of writing. She has been published in many magazines and her writing has been included in over fifty anthologies.Ben Okri has published eight novels, including The Famished Road and Starbook, as well as collections of poetry, short stories, and essays. He has won numerous international prizes.Pippa Goldschmidt writes long and short fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Her PhD in astronomy inspired her first novel The Falling Sky, about a female astronomer who discovers the Universe and loses her mind.China Boy
By Gus Lee. 1991
A young, American-born child of an aristocratic Mandarin family that has fled China struggles to assimilate in 1950s San Francisco…
in a novel from "an incredibly rich and new voice." (Amy Tan).The Baldwins
By David Homel, Fred A. Reed, Serge Lamothe. 2004
In the post-apocalyptic future, 50 years after the last government of turbo-liberals and its president-for-life have been elected, a group…
of researchers convenes a Congress to address the curious cultural phenomenon of the Baldwins, whose stories have been gathered and archived by the chroniclers. This novel of fragments represents contemporary prose at its most daring and experimental.The Baldwins
By David Homel, Fred Reed, Serge Lamothe. 2004
In the post-apocalyptic future, 50 years after the last government of turbo-liberals and its president-for-life have been elected, a group…
of researchers convenes a Congress to address the curious cultural phenomenon of the Baldwins, whose stories have been gathered and archived by the chroniclers. This novel of fragments represents contemporary prose at its most daring and experimental.Sanaaq: An Inuit Novel
By Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, Bernard D Anglure, Peter Frost. 2014
Sanaaq is an intimate story of an Inuit family negotiating the changes brought into their community by the coming of…
the qallunaat, the white people, in the mid-nineteenth century. Composed in 48 episodes, it recounts the daily life of Sanaaq, a strong and outspoken young widow, her daughter Qumaq, and their small semi-nomadic community in northern Quebec. Here they live their lives hunting seal, repairing their kayak, and gathering mussels under blue sea ice before the tide comes in. These are ordinary extraordinary lives: marriages are made and unmade, children are born and named, violence appears in the form of a fearful husband or a hungry polar bear. Here the spirit world is alive and relations with non-humans are never taken lightly. And under it all, the growing intrusion of the qallunaat and the battle for souls between the Catholic and Anglican missionaries threatens to forever change the way of life of Sanaaq and her young family.Sanaaq: An Inuit Novel
By Peter Frost, Bernard Saladin D Anglure, Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk. 2014
Sanaaq is an intimate story of an Inuit family negotiating the changes brought into their community by the coming of…
the qallunaat, the white people, in the mid-nineteenth century. Composed in 48 episodes, it recounts the daily life of Sanaaq, a strong and outspoken young widow, her daughter Qumaq, and their small semi-nomadic community in northern Quebec. Here they live their lives hunting seal, repairing their kayak, and gathering mussels under blue sea ice before the tide comes in. These are ordinary extraordinary lives: marriages are made and unmade, children are born and named, violence appears in the form of a fearful husband or a hungry polar bear. Here the spirit world is alive and relations with non-humans are never taken lightly. And under it all, the growing intrusion of the qallunaat and the battle for souls between the Catholic and Anglican missionaries threatens to forever change the way of life of Sanaaq and her young family.Not So Quiet...: A Novel (Women And Peace Ser.)
By Jane Marcus, Helen Zenna Smith. 1930
This story offers a rare, funny, bitter, feminist look at war from women actively engaged in it. Published in London…
in 1930, Not So Quiet...(on the Western Front) is a novel in autobiographical guise that describes a group of British women ambulance drivers on the French front lines during World War 1. As Voluntary Aid Detachment workers, the women pay for the privilege of driving the wounded through shell fire in the freezing cold, on no sleep and an inedible diet, under the watchful eye of their punishing commandant, nicknamed Mrs. Bitch.City of Jasmine
By Olga Grjasnowa. 2019
Syria - a country at war Amal, Hammoudi and Youssef are young and ambitious, the face of modern Syria. But…
when civil war tears through their homeland, they are left with a horrifying choice: risk death by staying in the country they love, or flee in search of a new life elsewhere? From one of Germany's most talented literary voices comes this intricately woven story of brutality, loss, and how hope can shine through when darkness feels overwhelming.Author and illustrator Martín Prechtel is internationally known for his explorations of ancient folklore and uncovering the lessons therein for…
modern readers. In The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun, he revives a hitherto unknown Guatemalan Tzutujil Mayan tale of the beginnings of the world with a poetic retelling of the story, 28 evocative drawings, and a critical analysis that both enlightens and entertains. Having lived with the Mayans and learned their language, Prechtel authoritatively retells the powerful tale of the Tall Girl who weaves the world in a loom, her parents the Sun and the Moon who repudiate her suitors, and the mysterious man who disguises himself as a hummingbird to lure her away. Prechtel expands this archetypal story with five layers of commentary, each teasing out a different wisdom and revealing its relevance to the world today.La perla: En español (Spanish Language Edition of The Pearl) (Novela/edhasa Ser. #Vol. 18)
By John Steinbeck. 2002
Steinbeck's classic cautionary tale, now in an accessible new Spanish-language translationOne of Steinbeck's most taught works, The Pearl is the…
story of the Mexican diver Kino, whose discovery of a magnificent pearl from the Gulf beds means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His dream blinds him to the greed and suspicions the pearl arouses in him and his neighbors, and even his loving wife Juana cannot temper his obsession or stem the events leading to tragedy. This classic novella from Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck examines the fallacy of the American dream, and illustrates the fall from innocence experienced by people who believe that wealth erases all problems.The Innocent Party (American Readers Series #17)
By Aimee Parkison. 2012
"Aimee Parkison most often begins softly, slowly stripping away each layer of social interaction to get at what is numinous…
and frightening and necessary about living in the real world. These are stories both about the difficulty and the intense suddenness of human connection, about the profound link that exists between being in love and being alone."Brian EvensonFrom "The Glass Girl":On certain evenings in dark motels, she could transform her lip into the edge of the bottle, imagining her face was made of amber glass and the men paused above her only to take a drink of breath. Over the years, men drank and drank until there were only two sips left inside. They began sucking the air out of the glass that grew warm in the wrong places because of heat radiating off their hands. The men's breath along with white feathers fell over autumn winds drifting through open windows.In this collection, Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize–winner Aimee Parkison's characters struggle to understand what happens when the innocent party becomes the guilty party. With magical realist flair, secrets are aired with dirty laundry, but the stains never come clean. Carol Anshaw writes, "Aimee Parkison offers a distinct new voice to contemporary fiction. Her seductive stories explore childhood as a realm of sorrows, and reveal the afflictions of adults who emerge from this private geography."Aimee Parkison has an MFA from Cornell University. She is associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches creative writing.