Authors writing about Asia

FIVE YEARS ON A ROCK is an amazing story of strength, personal honor and the rugged ability to continue on in the life you are handed. In 1915 Sawa Oyama obediently leaves Japan for Hawaii as a picture bride. She plans in her hopeful heart to return in five years to her home. But a picture bride is only romantic in fairytales and young girls dreams, the reality of such a life is more often dissapointment and grim endurance. Milton Murayma tells the story of his mother and the other remarkable Japanese women who went to Hawaii as brides and never went home again. They mananaged against incredible odds to be the dutiful wives and daughters that their own parents had raised them to be. They married men they didn’t know to relieve the financial burdens of their own families in Japan. They raised children, cared for their husbands, and their husbands’ families. And they worked and worked to make a better life possible and to overcome obstacles of poverty and loveless marriages. They never gave up the hope that it could be better.

This is a fabulous book not to be missed. The strength of Sawa Oyama is amazing and beautiful.

Milton Murayma is the author of a previous novel about the Oyama family life in Hawaii titled All I Asking for is My Body published in 1975 (I haven’t read it but it’s on my book list). Mr. Murayma was born on Maui and grew up in Lahina and in the nearby plantation camp of Puukolii. In addition to his two novels, he is the author of several plays, notably a historical drama, Yoshitsune.

THE PIANO TEACHER   In 1952, Claire Pendleton moves to Hong Kong with her husband and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter’s piano teacher.  As a provencial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the colony’s glamourous social life.  Her new husband is boring and works long hours.  She begins an affair with an Englishman whose mysterious past during the war years in Hong Kong adds to her taste for excitement.  Soon she is embroiled in the sadness and darkness of a past war that wasn’t hers, yet makes her question everything she thought she was. 

This book was a page turner.  It is a tale of survival, the choices we make and the price we pay.  Definitely worth a read.

Janice Y.K. Lee was born and raised in Hong Kong.  She graduated from Harvard College and was a former features editor at Elle and Mirabella magazines.  She lives in Hong Kong.  This is her first book.

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS   If you read The Kite Runner, by Kahled Hosseini, or even if you didn’t, don’t miss his second book A Thousand Splendid Suns.  It takes place in present day Afghanistan.  Mariam is already living a life of marital misery under male-dominated tradition when the Taliban take over.  She finds life even harder and more challenging with the introduction into her home of Laila, a younger second wife.  Starvation, fear and brutality both inside and outside their home forms an unexpected friendship between Mariam and Laila that leads to great sacrifice and bravery.  This book grabbed my heart.  I couldn’t put it down.  It is powerfully written – a tragic and beautiful book. 

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and moved to the United States in 1980.  His first novel, The Kite Runner, is an international best seller, published in 34 countries.

The Gift of Rain  -  Nominated for the Man Booker Prize

The Gift of Rain is the haunting story of wartime loyalties in Japanese occupied Malaysia.  Philip Hutton at 16 feels himself an outsider, the only child of a second marriage between a rich British businessman and a well-born Malayan woman.  Although the Hutton family welcomes Philip, his Malayan family turned away from his mother who died when he was seven.  He looks different.  He feels different.  He can’t quite fit himself in.

Then, an island on his father’s estate is rented to a middle-aged Japanese man who on purpose or by chance meets Philip and becomes his aikijutsu teacher.  A strong friendship develops between them in spite of the rumors of war and occupation of Malaysia by Japan. 

Philip seems to me to be hypnotized by this man, who is himself an outsider in Malaya at this time just before the war.  I get the strong feeling from the author of a physical relationship, although it is never stated. 

Malaya is occupied by the Japanese.  Philip is betrayed by his beloved teacher and friend, putting his family in grave danger.  He must make choices that may be right or wrong, but choices must be made.  Philip must save what he can of his family and his people, even though he is thought to be a traitor to his country.

This book is about the longing and frailty of youth, the mistakes we make because we love and trust and believe beyond what we should, the endless, ongoing, misery caused by racial differences and the consequences of our choices that we live with forever. 

Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang and lived in various regions of Malaysia as a child.  He studied law at the University of London and later worked as an advocate and solicitor in one of Kuala Lumpur’s most respected law firms.  The gift of Rain is Mr. Tan’s first novel.

PARADISE OF THE BLIND is the first Vietnamese novel ever translated and published in North America (1993).  Duong Thu Huong is Vietnam’s most beloved and outspoken novelist. 

This is the journey of three women during the revolutionary years of the 1950s.  It encompasses the horror of the Land Reform Campaign which marked the beginning of Vietnam’s disillusionment with the Communist experiment and The Rectification of Errors.  Families and livlihoods were destroyed.  Generations of cultural beliefs were erased by those who embraced Communism creating family divisions beyond repair. 

Our main character is Hang, a young woman forced to grow up too fast in the slums of Hanoi.  Hang’s mother whose life is shattered by her fanatical communist brother.  Aunt Tam, who through her self sacrifice manages to keep the land for Hang.  The beautifully described Vietnamese countryside, the age-old rituals, the pride and endurance of the ordinary Vietnamese people surrounded by poverty, corruption and loss make this a moving novel.   I strongly suggest you read it – I am going to look for more books by this author.

Duong Thu Huong was born in 1947 in Vietnam.  At 20, she led a Communist Youth Brigade sent to the front during the Vietnam War.  A vocal advocate of human rights and democratic political reform, Duong Thu Huong was expelled from the  Vietnamese Communist party in 1989 and imprisioned without a trial for seven months in 1991.  Her four novels have all been banned in Vietnam.

ARRANGED MARRIAGE is beautiful collection of short stories describing the lives of Indian girls and women who are raised in protective beliefs of their Indian culture, yet are married to Indian men who live in America with its many freedoms and opportunities for women.  All of the women in these stories struggle with the beauty of both cultures, loyalty to their families and to themselves.  They suffer with their decisions not really wanting to make any decisions at all.

In Doors, a young couple struggles with hospitality to a loved friend of the husband and the intrusion it brings to their marriage.  Affair, a tale of mismatching and misunderstanding brought to a bitter end.  The Disappearance, the saga of a missing wife and the shocking truth.  These are just three of eleven elegant stories. 

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the best selling author of the novels The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of Desire, plus the story collection The Unknown Errors of Our Lives and four collections of prize-winning poetry.  Her work has appeard in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and other publications.

THE BRIDEGROOM is a collection of short fiction from National Book Award-winning author of Waiting.  There are twelve stories set in contemporary China in the which men and women struggle with the same issues of quiet desperation, greed, and honesty that we all face.  Ha Jin makes these issues so plain and so recognizable in his very simply set out society that we are immediately aware and continue on with the story waiting to see what path the character will take.  Whatever path it is, we are made to understand it and empathize with the person and his/her struggle to reach a decision.  There seems to be no actual right or wrong, but only circumstance, family, loyalty, and all the bits and pieces of upbringing and experience that make people what they are and who can judge the right or wrong of that.

We have a man who finds himself arrested for the “bourgeois crime” of homosexuality.  Another story centers on a man who loses his memory and lives for months as a simple worker.  Then upon returning to his old life finds himself an inconvenience to his family!  Also, a piece about a workers’ strike gone wrong through a misunderstanding of how things are handled in an American run company.  I won’t give you any more hints.  You’ve got to read these stories yourself.  They are all superb.

The Bridegroom is an exciting work of short fiction and I recommend it. 

 Ha Jin has previously won the Hemingway/PEN Award for first fiction for his story collection Ocean of Words and the Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction for Under the Red Flag.  Among his many awards, in 2004 he won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was named as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his novel War Trash.