Interviews Weina Dai Randel burst onto the literary scene a number of years ago with her duology about Empress Wu Zetian, China’s first woman leader. After winning the prestigious Rita Award in 2017 and seeing her novels translated into seven languages, she is back now with a new historical novel set in 1940s Shanghai. Keeping with her love of strong women characters, her new book, The Last Rose of Shanghai, centers on a nightclub owner named Aiyi Shao who falls for a Jewish refugee who had recently escaped Nazi Germany. Through their love of jazz, they develop a forbidden bond set during one of Shanghai’s most volatile and exciting eras. Randel is the first Chinese American author to write about Shanghai Jewish refugees, although there have been dozens of memoirs, narratives, and novels about this phenomenon from Jewish authors. We recently spoke over Zoom about what made Shanghai so special and why it matters now, along with the reasons Jews escaped to Shanghai during World War II and how Chinese and Jewish traditions are so similar. Susan Blumberg-Kason: It seems that the popularity of 1930s and ’40s Shanghai rose both in China and the US about twenty-five years ago. Can you talk about the appeal of this time and why it’s so special, both to people in the US and China? Weina Dai Randel: I think many aspects of Old Shanghai appeal to us today. From the late 1920s to the early 1940s, the period of Old Shanghai was a symbol of... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2022-01-20 14:33:49 UTC ]
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At the risk of reigniting the Sally Rooney Discourse—today, Hulu and BBC Three released a few early images from their upcoming adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling first novel Conversations With Friends, which will premiere sometime this spring. (If you somehow don’t know what this novel is... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-02-04 13:53:52 UTC ]
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Trapeze has signed Nihal Arthanayake’s "game-changing" Let’s Talk: How to Have Better Conversations following a four-way auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-25 22:13:43 UTC ]
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Apostol, whose latest novel 'Bibliolepsy' earned a starred review from Publisher Weekly, will appear in conversation with librarian Jenna Rae Cabrera from the San Francisco Public Library on Tuesday, February 1, at 1:00 p.m. ET. Registration is free! Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-01-21 05:00:00 UTC ]
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In the inaugural discussion, which streamed live on January 4, 2022, Adrienne Cruz of the Azusa City (California) Library spoke with Naomi Hirahara, author of 'Clark & Division,' and Sujata Massey, author of 'The Bombay Prince.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-01-07 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Interviews Victoria Chang’s new collection, Dear Memory, expands the field of the memoir for readers to explore a full-color archive of family photos and historical documents collaged between lines of poetry and letters. It prompts us to ask, with her,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-01-05 19:50:39 UTC ]
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Interviews Photo by Diane Picchiottino / Unsplash That Famous Abyss (Wunderkammer, 2020) is a book of exclusive interviews with Enrique Vila-Matas by cultural journalist Anna María Iglesia, covering such themes as why write, the places of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-29 21:46:44 UTC ]
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Interviews Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s astonishing debut novel, The House of Rust, winner of the inaugural Graywolf Press Africa Prize, arrived in October as if on a magical wave, imbued with an assortment of creatures—human and animal, real and... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-15 21:42:08 UTC ]
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The Shanghai International Children's Book Fair (CCBF) has been postponed from this month to March 2022 because of the situation with Covid-19 in China and will now coincide with the Bologna Children's Book Fair (BCBF). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-09 00:00:04 UTC ]
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Christine Pride and Jo Piazza’s novel explores the fallout after the shooting of an unarmed Black teen. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-11-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Interviews Photo by Kari Gunter-Seymour / www.karigunterseymourpoet.com Kari Gunter-Seymour (b. 1955) is having a moment—soon to become two years of moments since she was appointed in June 2020 to a two-year term as the Poet Laureate of Ohio.... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-07 13:41:36 UTC ]
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Interviews Dimitris Lyacos with Marsias / Photo by Walter Melcher In 2019 I interviewed Dimitris Lyacos on the occasion of the US tour/launch of his trilogy, Poena Damni, which had been recently released in the English complete edition. When we... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-04 20:23:19 UTC ]
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Culture Photo by Deborah Vaia Amber Ambrose Aurèle is a shoe designer, teacher, and art historicist. In 2012 she graduated as one of the first-generation Master Shoe Design at ArtEZ Fashion Masters. She searches for the boundaries between fashion... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-09-03 14:43:50 UTC ]
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Interviews Emilio Fraia’s Sevastopol, out this summer from New Directions, is the sort of book that beguiles and dazzles in equal measure. Consisting of three disparate stories—of a mountain climber attempting to scale Mt. Everest, a mysterious loner... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-08-09 20:31:30 UTC ]
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Interviews Photo by Oluwaseyi Johnson / Unsplash I was lucky to meet Romalyn Ante when I was invited to read at a virtual event organized by R. A. Villanueva and hosted by Books Are Magic in August 2020. Ante was the guest of honor at the event,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-06-02 11:57:51 UTC ]
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Interviews Photo of Sulaiman Addonia by Alexander Meeus. For me, one of the most astounding books of this past year—which may have slipped your attention due to the pandemic—was Silence Is My Mother Tongue, the second novel by Ethiopian Eritrean... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-05-18 13:43:22 UTC ]
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Akhil Reed Amar celebrates the debates that led to revolt, the Constitution and U.S. law. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-05-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Interviews Since 2015, award-winning Restless Books publisher Ilan Stavans has been immersed in bringing the literary classics to new audiences through Restless Classics. These editions come with introductions by prominent diverse writers from around... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-05-12 15:41:23 UTC ]
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#FollowLocalJournalists. That’s the hashtag on a campaign that Twitter is launching today to encourage its users to do just that. According to Sara Fischer, of Axios, in addition to social-media activity, the campaign is running full-page ads in local papers owned by Gannett (including the... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-05-03 12:04:28 UTC ]
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Susan Richman, a former publicity executive at several major publishers and who worked with the Goddard Riverside Community Center Book Fair for more than 30 years, died April 19. She was 80. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-04-23 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Interviews Photo © Matika Wilbur For the 44th Annual Writers Week, the University of California, Riverside Department of Creative Writing, in partnership with the LA Review of Books, honored three US Poets Laureate with Lifetime Achievement... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-04-21 15:11:24 UTC ]
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