Can We Truly Be Free of Our Past? A Conversation with Wendy Chen, by Xixuan Collins Interviews robvollmar@ou.edu Mon, 04/29/2024 - 15:10 An epic family saga that spans over one hundred years and two countries, Wendy Chen’s powerful, lyrical debut, Their Divine Fires (Algonquin, forthcoming on May 7, 2024), is about history, love, passion, loyalty, betrayal, and our desire to be free of our past. In the novel, four generations of women survived the formidable hardship in China during the tumultuous twentieth century—the warlord melee, the Communist–Nationalist civil war, the Japanese invasion, and the Cultural Revolution—each emerging with unspeakable loss and heartache yet undampened spirit for life and the future. An intimate study of family relationships with the backdrop of a chaotic, changing world, this book provides a perspective on Chinese history rarely seen in American literature. Xixuan Collins: You capture the emotions of the four generations of Chinese and Chinese American women so vividly. You have said that you were inspired by your grandmother’s stories of her mother and uncles and the ways they fought, lived, and died for what they believed in. Can you tell us a little more about the story behind your story; that is, what was the moment when you realized you had a story to tell and you felt compelled to sit down and write this novel? Wendy Chen: My grandmother would always tell me stories of her family when I... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2024-04-29 20:10:46 UTC ]
Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of heated discourse surrounding a trend in book covers in which many new releases opt for variations of the same colorful abstractions: The Blob. Somehow deemed appropriate for everything from dystopian debuts to literary fiction bestsellers, these... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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The Nigerian writer explains the origins of his latest book’s title, why novels are harder to write than plays, and the masochistic pull of political activism. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2021-11-02 22:37:29 UTC ]
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From magic realism and folklore retellings to literary fiction and nonfiction, here are some of the best paperback releases for book club. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-10-28 10:30:00 UTC ]
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On this day in 1940, Maxine Hong Kingston was born in Stockton, CA. Kingston, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, took the literary world by storm with her seminal work The Woman Warrior (1976), which blends autobiography and mythology. The Woman Warrior, the winner of the 1976 National Book... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-10-27 16:42:53 UTC ]
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Inside its dry and musty hull, the smell of old books contains great distances. You sense time travel, of course, but also the soaring aeronautics of ideas. Sometimes a great book sticks the landing, very often they don’t. And sometimes books fail to jump high enough. In smelling old books, you... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-10-27 08:50:57 UTC ]
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News and Events (c) Rama, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr NORMAN, OKLA. – World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, announced late Tuesday evening that Boubacar Boris Diop is the 27th... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-26 21:56:54 UTC ]
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This classic story of a single mother’s struggle against poverty, published in 1946, would become the first novel by a Black woman to sell a million copies. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-22 04:28:52 UTC ]
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The Chilean novelist was living in exile when her first novel was published in 1985. “In a way, I feel that I am working for my country, even if I don’t live there,” she told us. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-21 15:31:43 UTC ]
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The Times would later call this 1995 memoir of a hardscrabble Texas childhood “one of the best books ever written about growing up in America.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-21 14:55:16 UTC ]
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This tale of Gilded Age New York City became, in 1921, the first novel by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. Continue reading at The New York Times
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Sequoia Nagamatsu’s bold first novel imagines how future humans might grapple with the fallout from climate change Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-15 04:56:32 UTC ]
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The Madeleine Milburn Literary, TV & Film Agency has promoted Olivia Maidment to literary agent to build its literary fiction list. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-30 10:47:49 UTC ]
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The Center for Fiction has just announced its shortlist for the 2021 First Novel Prize. The seven titles were selected from a longlist of twenty-seven debut novels, all published in the US between January 1 to December 21. The prize, first established in 2006, celebrates the best debut fiction... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-28 17:25:35 UTC ]
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Doerr’s first novel since winning a Pulitzer Prize for “All the Light We Cannot See” is full of people thinking big thoughts. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-28 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“Fitzgerald likes to rub rich people’s monstrousness against their beauty and thereby make sparks fly.” Andrew Martin and Benjamin Nugent discuss F. Scott Fitzgerald on his birthday. | Lit Hub Criticism Biographer Jacques Berlinerblau on why it matters that the literary world lacks critical... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-24 10:30:35 UTC ]
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“Cloud Cuckoo Land,” Doerr’s first novel since “All the Light We Cannot See,” unites five characters over a millennium in a tribute to books and those who love them. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-24 09:00:04 UTC ]
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The Nigerian writer, the first sub-Saharan winner of the Nobel Prize, discusses 'Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-23 13:00:36 UTC ]
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Simon & Schuster UK has acquired the 28th instalment in American author Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series, alongside the first novel in a brand new series. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-22 17:14:06 UTC ]
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Flash fiction has never been hotter. A tectonic shift over the last 20 years in how narrative is conveyed—fueled largely by the online journal’s rise from (mostly) irrelevance to somewhere near the top of the literary fiction food chain—has created the perfect environment for disseminating... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-09-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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“Palmares” — her first novel since 1999’s “Mosquito” — is an emancipation story set in 17th-century Brazil. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-14 09:00:08 UTC ]
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