Interviews Renee H. Shea Monique Truong / Photo © Haruka Sakaguchi Monique Truong, who came to the United States in 1975 as a refugee from Vietnam, began exploring untold and ignored histories in her first novel, The Book of Salt (2003), told through the voice of Binh, the cook of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris. Her autobiographical second novel, Bitter in the Mouth (2010) is a coming-of-age story set in North Carolina. In her most recent novel, The Sweetest Fruits (Viking, 2019), Truong tells the story of Lafcadio Hearn from the perspective of three women: his mother, Rosa; his first wife, Alethea; and his Japanese wife, Setsu. Shea: At its core, The Sweetest Fruits is a story about storytelling—and it’s Russian dolls of narrative! It’s not only that three different women have their say about Hearn and their relationship with him, but each is telling her story to a specific audience—so issues of mediation and agency add further complications, as do oral vs. written stories and translation. How did you arrive at this approach instead of just telling the story in the voice of one person, then the next, then the next? Truong: This question is a Russian doll of inquiries! You’re absolutely right that the novel is interested in the different ways that stories are transmitted to us: oral vs. written, in our mother tongue vs. in translation, private story vs. public history, women’s voices vs. men’s, face-to-face vs.... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2019-09-17 13:54:26 UTC ]
“You see, but you do not observe.” –Sherlock Holmes, “A Scandal in Bohemia” * It all started with a book that made me curious. I was on a house call in Georgetown, invited to browse the personal book collection of a woman who used to be a professional rare book dealer like me. I spent […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-02-19 10:58:39 UTC ]
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I know some people like to march to the beat of their own drum and aren’t really interested in what ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-02-18 13:30:00 UTC ]
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Sophie Lewis chronicles the rise and fall of #girlboss feminism: “The funeral for ‘trickle-down feminism,’ eerily, keeps repeating itself, suggesting that, every time we report that the girlboss is dead, we’re being wishful.” | Lit Hub Criticism Rebecca Romney on unearthing a legacy of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-02-18 11:30:57 UTC ]
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Three dynamic queer characters carve a place for themselves among Gilded Age New York's elite in Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's MUTUAL INTEREST. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-02-14 12:30:00 UTC ]
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I don’t know about you, but 2025 has felt like the longest year known to humankind. When I’m stressed out ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-02-05 13:00:00 UTC ]
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This week, the book-reading internet was apparently in a mild uproar over six redesigns of Jane Austen novels, which will be published—with new introductions from popular contemporary YA romance novelists like Ali Hazelwood and Tessa Bailey—by Puffin, Penguin UK’s children’s imprint, in March.... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-02-04 14:47:27 UTC ]
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Historical fiction centering *The* Woman behind the Harlem Renaissance, a tropical rebel gets her duke, and more of this month's best book club books. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-02-04 13:30:00 UTC ]
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From forgotten historical disasters to pioneers of culture and technology, these historical fiction books about little known history bring the more obscure sides of history to light. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-22 14:00:00 UTC ]
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I purposely avoided reading the works of other Palestinian American novelists making their ways into the world as I wrote Too Soon. When I looked up, I saw my book would be a part of a literary wave I had no idea I was riding, an artistic movement, that felt particular to the Palestinian... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-01-22 09:59:55 UTC ]
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From compelling historical fiction to high-speed thrillers, dive into this week's new YA releases. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-15 13:30:00 UTC ]
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Richard Osman and Kate Mosse say plan to mine artistic works for data would destroy creative fieldsKate Mosse and Richard Osman have hit back at Labour’s plan to give artificial intelligence companies broad freedoms to mine artistic works for data, saying it could destroy growth in creative... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-14 17:52:02 UTC ]
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"These books feature a lot of real historical figures—something I always love in my historical fiction." What kind of historical fiction do you love? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-08 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Jewish Life in Harbin, China: A Conversation with Jean Hoffmann Lewanda by Susan Blumberg-Kason Interviews [email protected] Tue, 01/07/2025 - 07:08 Shalama and Paul, Shanghai, 1950. Photo courtesy of Jean Hoffmann LewandaI met the author Jean... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2025-01-07 13:08:24 UTC ]
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The average income for a writer is now £7,000. For our sake and the country’s, we need financial assistanceThis week will be like A-level results week for authors, but with added economic jeopardy. For a good whack of the 100,000 writers and translators in the UK, finding out how many books they... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-05 08:00:15 UTC ]
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He wasn’t just prolific, publishing 32 books. His output also showed an unusual range that included memoirs and forays into historical fiction and even poetry. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-12-30 10:58:27 UTC ]
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Hilary Mantel stressed she was concerned with depicting the outer world faithfully but her chief concern was her character’s interior drama. This adaptation shows how much she strayed from that Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-12-20 12:48:36 UTC ]
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Writing fiction itself might be (and often is) considered an act of translation: from experience to language, from emotion to logic, from chaos to legibility. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, or a stroke of good luck, then that these three fall debut novelists selected for our craft series each... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-12-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
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