ELLA KELLEHER WRITES — Beijing’s Bell and Drum Towers stand one in front of the other, the Drum Tower in front with red walls and grey tiles and the Bell Tower behind with gray walls and green tiles. These two obelisks have watched over the bustling city for centuries like…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE WEDDING PARTY (2021) BY LIU XINWU
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — How would you feel living in an 80-year-old’s body as a teenager? What would you do if you knew your days were numbered? How would you like to be remembered? My Brilliant Life (2021) by Korean author Ae-ran Kim follows a 16-year-old boy named Areum with…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: MY BRILLIANT LIFE (2021) BY AE-RAN KIM
BRIANNA HIRAMI WRITES — Cho Nam-Joo’s eye opening novel, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, displays how South Korea’s demoralizing rules and societal norms negatively affect the lives of Korean women. This straightforward novel wastes no time by jumping right into Kim Jiyoung’s, the protagonist’s, story about how sexism casually dictates the lives…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: KIM JIYOUNG, BORN 1982 (2021) BY CHO NAM-JOO
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Motherhood — perhaps the most intimate and universal experience to exist in the universe. Nothing organic can start without it, nothing is left untouched by it. Motherhood transcends all differences. Yet, no singular being’s journey with it is ever quite the same as the next. At…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: A THOUSAND TIMES YOU LOSE YOUR TREASURE (2021) BY HOA NGUYEN
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese novels) – People often dwell on the existential concept of death and what it means to die. But what does it mean to be born? To be alive? For the beautiful, talented, and wealthy, life would seem to be a cornucopia of joyous excitement and…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: HEAVEN (2021) BY MIEKO KAWAKAMI
ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Robert McDonald, US Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Obama, struck deep into the hearts of mental healthcare workers at the West Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs, albeit unintentionally, when he told them this: The effects of any war can be felt forty years after…
Full Article SRI LANKA: A NEW NOVEL REOPENS WOUNDS OF WAR
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – Are you feeling disillusioned with the relentless hustle and colorless monotony of metropolis living? Do you feel like another cog in the capitalist machine? Do you crave a simpler life? Consider adopting and adhering to the daily…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE EASY LIFE IN KAMUSARI (2021) BY SHION MIURA
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — To read The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void by Jackie Wang is to return to familiarity delivered through mystifying means. Within the surreal landscapes that are conjured up by the speaker, we are shown a world largely fabricated by an unhinged…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE SUNFLOWER CAST A SPELL TO SAVE US FROM THE VOID (2021) BY JACKIE WANG
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – How does a global war affect regular people caught in its wake of devastation? How long do those effects linger on and how should a society react to them? Shaw Kuzki’s heart-wrenching tale, Soul Lanterns (2021), aims…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: SOUL LANTERNS (2021) BY SHAW KUZKI
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of great new books from Japan) – Many are already well aware of love’s fragility, but At the End of the Matinee (2021) proves that love can also be incredibly resilient. Based on a true story, Keiichiro Hirano’s book depicts an agonizing…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: AT THE END OF THE MATINEE (2021) BY KEIICHIRO HIRANO
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – This imaginative and captivatingly ambiguous recent release by Murakami reads like a game of two truths and a lie (in this case, seven truths and a lie). First Person Singular (2021) presents its audience with eight entrancing…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: FIRST PERSON SINGULAR (2021) by HARUKI MURAKAMI
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) — Adolescence in Astral Season, Beastly Season (2020) is a frightening and tragic nightmare that haunts a person endlessly. The teenage mind is pried apart in Tahi Saihate’s unusual coming-of-age story to reveal a deep-seated psychology of obsession.…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: ASTRAL SEASON, BEASTLY SEASON BY TAHI SAIHATE
REI KITAGAWA WRITES – Japan Rearmed, authored by the renowned Sheila A. Smith (and recently published by Harvard University Press), offers an extensive and intimate account of U.S.-Japan relations, arguing that the Japanese government is reconsidering its dependence on the United States amidst increasing threats from North Korean missiles and…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: THE POLITICS OF JAPAN REARMED
(This is the fourth in an original series about new wave feminist writers in Korea whose work has started to reach English language readers via superb translations.) ANDREA PLATE WRITES — “Fitting into middle class society is getting harder and harder for the younger generation.” So says Kim Sagwa, author…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: A SOUTH KOREAN AUTHOR TELLS A UNIVERSAL TALE
ASSOCIATE EDITOR CAMILLE BRYAN WRITES — A true revolutionary dedicated to avenging colonial invasions, Chairman Mao would delight in seeing today’s uprising in the West: the burning courthouses, destroyed storefronts, street rampages — all in demand that the world hear those formerly silenced. In his own country, the Chairman legitimized…
Full Article LOVELL IN ‘MAOISM’: MAO’S INFLUENCE THEN AND NOW