BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – The “perfect suburban life” is pretty simple in theory: get married, buy a house, and have children. Invite your neighbors over. Take up a hobby – like raising exotic fish. Yet, this seemingly picturesque ideal of marital bliss is scrutinized in Japanese storyteller…
GABY RUSLI WRITES – The world is so much more than black and white, for there are always things unbeknown to us— secrets. A person is not who you know they are unless you know what they hide from the world. In the fictional Japanese town of Akakawa, Watersong (2022) by Clarissa Goenawan tells…
GABY RUSLI WRITES — Sometimes in our younger, more vulnerable years, we find ourselves roaming the world, trying to find out who we are and what we are meant to do. Set between the Netherlands and Indonesia, Dewi Lestari’s Paper Boats (2017) serves to remind younger Indonesian generations to march to the beat…
**Trigger Warning: This article recounts experiences of homophobia, suicide, physical abuse, and rape. BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – “Love conquers all” – we are often taught this maxim as children. We are persuaded to believe the very essence of love can solve all life’s problems. Yet, for those…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Why do people assume relationships could ever make logical sense? Love and relationships – the shimmering red strings that tie humans together – are convoluted at best. At their most devastating, they are temporary and ephemeral, like the changing ginkgo leaves that pile on the…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Japanese suspense author, Riku Onda, presents us with a psychological thriller that spans the course of a single night. A man and woman decide to spend one final evening together in their shared Tokyo apartment before going their separate ways. Over the course…
SARAH LOHMANN WRITES – “Does it hurt?” When we hear this question, it is often with an urgent or melancholic tone. Korean author Jungeun Hwang frames the question differently when it is asked of thirteen-year-old Nana by her childhood friend Naghi after he strikes her across the cheek. She confirms it does…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Kirsten Chen’s latest novel, Counterfeit (2022), follows Ava Wong – a straight-edge Chinese-American lawyer shackled to an agonizingly mundane routine of house chores and taking care of her maddening infant, Henri, who cannot seem to cease his daily tantrums. Married to a successful yet always…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Hiromi Kawakami’s collection of vignettes titled People From My Neighborhood (2020), recently published into English, details the individuals of her neighborhood in a brilliant piece of bite-sized fiction. In 120 pages, the reader is plunged into a lifetime of drama, secrets, and otherworldly quirkiness…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Government corruption. Political scandals. Contract killers. Disappearances. Set in contemporary Seoul, South Korea, the world within Kim Un-Su’s novel, The Plotters (2018), focuses on the deaths of random political figures as well as who is pulling the trigger. The shadowy figures responsible for…
Aerial Concave Without Cloud – 113 pages – $16.95 – Nightboat Books, New York, NY ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Grief is a lonely process as much as it is all-encompassing. Like all pain, it takes away, gives back wisdom, and breaks people open. Aerial Concave Without Cloud (2022) by Sueyeun…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES — South Korea, often referred to as the ‘plastic surgery capital of the world,’ is a place where it’s not only typical but expected for young women to have double eyelid surgery before they hit thirty. Jaw slimming, skin lasering, destructive dieting – these radical approaches…
Violets – The Feminist Press at CUNY – 222 pages — $22.03 BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – “Violets, Violin, Violence, Violator,” chants the main character, San, as she reads from a dictionary. In just a few short lines, a beautiful purple flower morphs into “one who breaks rules,…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Beauty is a weapon. In South Korea, widely known as the plastic surgery capital of the world, one finds themselves needing to be armed to the teeth at all times. “Korea is a place where you can’t leave the house without makeup if…
GABY RUSLI WRITES (in an on-going series of reviews of Indonesian classics) — A grandfather who seeks to marry off his granddaughters to his wealthy friends for connections. A young, successful model who suffered the consequences of her early success. A Chinese-Indonesian family was left with the scars and traumas…
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Within Time is a Mother (2022), Ocean Vuong fashions a world so rich with polarities. No stone is left unturned. Vuong explores relationships in all their capacities: a person and their chosen loves, a person and society, and loving oneself. Following the successes of Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016) and On Earth…
