Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family

Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family

by Yoshiko Uchida

Autobiographical account of the internment of the Japanese American author's family in 1942.

Monica Sone spent her childhood in pre-World War II Seattle, in a part Japanese, part American world. Dinner might be steak and pumpkin pie or pickled daikon, rice, and soy sauce; there was American public school during the day and the strict formality of Japanese school in the late afternoons. "I found myself switching my personality back and forth daily like a chameleon. At Bailey Gatzert School I was a... (more)

Our Feet Walk the Sky: Women of the South Asian Diaspora

Our Feet Walk the Sky: Women of the South Asian Diaspora

first anthology of its kind: essays/memoir/fiction

Obasan

by Joy Kogawa

Based on the author's own experiences, this award-winning novel was the first to tell the story of the evacuation, relocation, and dispersal of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War.

The Makioka Sisters

by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

In Osaka in the years immediately before World War II, four aristocratic women try to preserve a way of life that is vanishing. As told by Junichiro Tanizaki, the story of the Makioka sisters forms what is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century, a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family–and an entire society–sliding into the abyss of modernity. Tsuruko, the eldest sister, clings... (more)

Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

by Adeline Yen Mah

Born in 1937 in a port city a thousand miles north of Shanghai, Adeline Yen Mah was the youngest child of an affluent Chinese family who enjoyed rare privileges during a time of political and cultural upheaval. But wealth and position could not shield Adeline from a childhood of appalling emotional abuse at the hands of a cruel and manipulative Eurasian stepmother. Determined to survive through her enduring faith... (more)

China Men (Vintage International)

by Maxine Hong Kingston

The author chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese men in America, woven from memory, myth and fact. Here's a storyteller's tale of what they endured in a strange new land.

A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman

A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman

by Ning, Lao TAi-TAi

Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai, born in the seventh year of T'ung Chih, 1867, lived a full and difficult life; she bore and buried children, worked as a maidservant, begged for food, and felt pride in her old age by sharing a home with her son and his family. A lively, driven woman who wants only to provide for her family, often without the support of her opium-addicted husband, Ning Lao wonders how life would have been... (more)

Nisei: The Quiet Americans

by Bill Hosokawa

Hailed at the time of its publication in 1969, Bill Hosokawa's "Nisei" remains an inspiring account of the original Japanese immigrants and their role in the development of the West. Hosokawa recounts the ordeals faced by the immigrant generation and their American-born offspring, the Nisei;the ill-advised government decisions that led to their uprooting during WWII; how they withstood harsh camp life; and their... (more)

Spring Moon: A Novel of China

by Bette Lord

At a time of mystery and cruelty ... in an ancient land of breathtaking beauty and exotic surprise ... a courageous woman triumphs over her world's ultimate tragedy. Behind the garden walls of the House of Chang, pampered daughter Spring Moon is born into luxury and privilege. But the tempests of change sweep her into a new world -- one of hardship, turmoil, and heartbreak, one that threatens to destroy her... (more)

The Scent of the Gods

by Fiona Cheong

YA-- Growing up in the exotic, often violent world of 1960s Singapore, orphan Su Yen lives with her two orphaned cousins, Li Shin and Li Yuen, and a large assortment of aunts and uncles, all ruled by Grandmother--a higher authority than any Mandarin, Malay, or European leader. While Li Yuen avoids his studies and Li Shin sneaks out to National Cadet meetings, Su Yen quietly observes the changes around her, from... (more)

Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic

by Betty Bao Lord, Bette Lord

Urgent and timeless, Legacies brings us closer than we have ever been to penetrating the great conundrum of China m the twentieth century. It could only have been written by Bette Bao Lord -- born in China, raised in America, author of the bestselling novel Spring Moon, wife of a former American ambassador to China, resident in Beijing during the "China Spring" of 1989. Lord's unique web of relationships and her... (more)

The sun shines over the Sanggan River (Modern Chinese literature library)Ling Ding

The sun shines over the Sanggan River (Modern Chinese literature library)

by Ling Ding

Text: English (translation) Original Language: Chinese

Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire

Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire

Asian American feminism is a political hybrid linking very different cultures. "We all share the same rung on the racial hierarchy and on the gender hierarchy," asserts Sonia Shah, the editor of this appropriately diverse collection of writings. In it, Shamita Das Dasgupta and her daughter, Sayantani Das Dasgupta, comment on both raising and being third-world activists in the American Midwest, teetering... (more)

Women in the New Asia: From Pain to Power

Women in the New Asia: From Pain to Power

by Yayori Matsui

What impact has the rapid economic development of Asia had on women? Why is Asia still home to the largest number of impoverished women? How does the feminization of poverty, one of the most urgent issues facing the continent, actually take place ? This remarkable book charts the effects of the economic boom on women across Asia. The author, one of Japan’s leading journalists, demonstrates how Asian women are... (more)

Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution

Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution

by Agnes Smedley

Agnes Smedley worked in and wrote about China from 1928 to 1941. Her biographers have collected 18 of her stories and reportage on Chinese women, all out of print and most unavailable even in public libraries. The stories, based on interviews with revolutionary women, include descriptions of the massacre of feminists in the Canton commune, of the silkworkers of Canton whose solidarity earns them the "charge" of... (more)

Autobiography of a Chinese Girl

by Bingying Xie

Text: English (translation) Original Language: Chinese

Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism

Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism

by Aoki Yayoi, Ide Sachiko, Kanazumi Fumiko, Kora Rumiko, Matsui Yayori, Miya Yoshiko, Nakanishi Toyoko, Ochiai Keiko, Saito Chiyo

Broken Silence brings together for the first time many of Japan's leading feminists, women who have been bucking the social mores of a patriarchal society for years but who remain virtually unknown outside Japan. While Japan is often thought to be without a significant feminist presence, these interviews and essays reveal a vital community of women fighting for social change. Sandra Buckley's dialogues with... (more)

Womansword: What Japanese Words Say about Women

Womansword: What Japanese Words Say about Women

by Kittredge Cherry

Womansword is an insightful look at Japanese words concerning women and what they reveal about the status of women in modern Japan. In a collection of short, lively essays, author Kittredge Cherry considers the connotations, usage, and context of several hundred common words and phrases related to female identity, girlhood, marriage, mothering, working, sex, and aging. These Japanese words offer a new perspective... (more)

Making Waves an Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American WomenEditor

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: asian/pacific american women

Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family

by Yoshiko Uchida

Nisei Daughter

by Monica Itoi Sone

Our Feet Walk the Sky: Women of the South Asian Diaspora

Obasan

by Joy Kogawa

The Makioka Sisters

by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

by Adeline Yen Mah

China Men (Vintage International)

by Maxine Hong Kingston

A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman

by Ning, Lao TAi-TAi

Nisei: The Quiet Americans

by Bill Hosokawa

Spring Moon: A Novel of China

by Bette Lord

The Scent of the Gods

by Fiona Cheong

Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic

by Betty Bao Lord, Bette Lord

The sun shines over the Sanggan River (Modern Chinese literature library)

by Ling Ding

Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire

Women in the New Asia: From Pain to Power

by Yayori Matsui

Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution

by Agnes Smedley

Autobiography of a Chinese Girl

by Bingying Xie

Broken Silence: Voices of Japanese Feminism

by Aoki Yayoi, Ide Sachiko, Kanazumi Fumiko, Kora Rumiko, Matsui Yayori, Miya Yoshiko, Nakanishi Toyoko, Ochiai Keiko, Saito Chiyo

Womansword: What Japanese Words Say about Women

by Kittredge Cherry

Making Waves an Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American Women

by Editor