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 ]
Just because the 2020s aren't quite living up to the hype of the 1920s doesn't mean we can't enjoy some great twenties historical fiction. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-02-26 11:32:00 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Statue of renowned Kurdish historian, author, and poet Mastoureh Ardalan (1805–1848) in Erbil / Photo by Levi Meir Clancy / Unsplash Even though they appear to have a lot to say about the historical, political, cultural, and literary... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-02-23 21:05:41 UTC ]
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Literary novelists are struggling with whether, and how, to incorporate Covid into their fiction. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-02-20 22:17:31 UTC ]
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These middle grade AAPI and Asian historical fiction books, including Troublemaker by John Cho, transport readers into past, learning about important moments in history. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-02-17 11:36:00 UTC ]
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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” –Arthur Ashe * Years ago, when I was still a budding fiction writer, I published an essay about how hard skateboarding is to write about. I focused on a few novelists who had skater characters in their books but who clearly didn’t skate […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-02-09 09:55:45 UTC ]
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There is so much historical fiction outside the confines of the WWII! Put these five books about other wars on your TBR. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-02-06 11:30:00 UTC ]
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These new historical fiction reads promise lessons, romance, drama, and intriguing settings ranging from the 1700s to the 1970s! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-02-03 11:36:00 UTC ]
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A container collapse in the mid-Atlantic earlier this month sank copies of Mason Hereford’s Turkey and the Wolf and Melissa Clark’s Dinner in OneThere are two highly anticipated new cookbooks that won’t be troubling Pinch of Nom’s position at the top of the charts any time soon – after they sank... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-01-31 16:44:26 UTC ]
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Leanne Brown’s wildly popular, IACP award-winning and The New York Times bestselling cookbook Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day showed us that kitchen skill and resourcefulness, not budget, is the key to great food. Greenlight is delighted to welcome Brown back for the launch of her new... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-01-27 09:49:53 UTC ]
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Penguin Michael Joseph m.d. Louise Moore will be the head judge on "The Great Cookbook Challenge with Jamie Oliver", aiming to showcase and demystify the publishing process when the series airs on Channel 4 later this month. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-22 18:35:43 UTC ]
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White Lion has bagged the first official cookbook inspired by hit television show "Peaky Blinders". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-04 23:21:05 UTC ]
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Looking for great new reads in the new year? Add these 2022 historical fiction books to your TBR right now, including The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-01-04 11:30:00 UTC ]
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Regardless of how 2021 went for you, 2022 is another chance for all of us to make the new year better than those that came before it. We set New Year’s resolutions with the best of intentions, but it’s no wonder that so many people fail after just a few weeks – old habits die hard. Just as it’s... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-01-01 14:34:42 UTC ]
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Who is Elena Ferrante? One of the most widely-acclaimed and beloved contemporary novelists is also the most unknown. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-12-29 11:33:00 UTC ]
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The celebrity cookbook is a curious genre: its essential premise is that a person who is famous for something other than cooking can, on the basis of that fame, also teach us how to cook. At the same time, it’s a tried-and-true publishing gambit: Gwyneth Paltrow and Stanley Tucci are following... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-23 12:05:00 UTC ]
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From Franzen to Kidneygate (with a prolonged pit stop in the land of Supply Chain Issues), we’ve finally reached the end of the Biggest Literary Stories of the Year. Against reading historical fiction to learn history: Juhea Kim considers how the onus of writing educational fiction falls... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-12-20 11:30:45 UTC ]
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When it comes to great novels, this year felt like an embarrassment of riches. The books collected here are ambitious—in intellect, in scope, in subject matter, and in size. Some are perfect encapsulations of the unique problems of our time, while others illuminate the human threads that connect... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-16 12:05:00 UTC ]
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It’s safe to say that in general, 2021 was an improvement on 2020—but that doesn’t mean it was a big one. Among the many disappointments of this year was the fact that we lost far too many members of the literary community, from poets to novelists to editors to critics to publishers. To them, we […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-12-15 09:49:46 UTC ]
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The year’s most transporting novels have taken us to the past and around the globe. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-12-09 10:00:10 UTC ]
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Are there certain books with topics you avoid? That you fear may leave you a little worse for wear? Here's what may happen if you read them. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-12-07 11:38:00 UTC ]
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