Asian American Fiction 2007
Explore the best Asian American fiction books of 2007 with our curated list. Discover acclaimed novels, compelling stories, and must-read works by talented Asian American authors.
Book
Free Food for Millionaires
by Min Jin Lee
"Goodbye, Columbus meets the novels of Amy Tan in this American story of class, society and identity that marks the debut of a new voice in fiction"--Provided by the publisher.
Book
Happy Birthday or Whatever
by Annie Choi
Meet Annie Choi. She fears cable cars and refuses to eat anything that casts a shadow. Her brother thinks chicken is a vegetable. Her father occasionally starts fires at work. Her mother collects Jesus trading cards and wears plaid like it's a job. No matter how hard Annie and her family try to understand one another, they often come up hilariously short. But in the midst of a family crisis, Annie comes to realize that the only way to survive one another is to stick together . . . as difficult as that might be. Annie Choi's Happy Birthday or Whatever is a sidesplitting, eye-opening, and transcendent tale of coping with an infuriating, demanding, but ultimately loving Korean family.
Book
Transparency
by Frances Hwang
With a deceptively simple yet graceful style, and in the tradition of Lara Vapnyar, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Gish Jen, Frances Hwang captures the thousand minor battles waged in the homes of immigrants--struggles to preserve timehonored traditions or break free of them, to maintain authority or challenge it, and to take advantage of modern excesses without diluting one's ethnic identity. In "Garden City," a weary Chinese couple, struggling to evict their deadbeat tenant, is forced to face the aftermath of their teenage son's death from cancer. And in "The Old Gentleman," a daughter becomes alienated from her father when he finds love--or what he thinks could be love--in his old age. Frances Hwang is a powerful talent, and TRANSPARENCY not only showcases her myriad gifts, but also announces the arrival of an exciting new voice.
Book
Peony in Love
by Lisa See
“I finally understand what the poets have written. In spring, moved to passion; in autumn only regret.” For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, these lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females have ever seen. Like the heroine in the drama, Peony is the cloistered daughter of a wealthy family, trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage. Though raised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own. Peony’s mother is against her daughter’s attending the production: “Unmarried girls should not be seen in public.” But Peony’s father assures his wife that proprieties will be maintained, and that the women will watch the opera from behind a screen. Yet through its cracks, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave–and is immediately overcome with emotion. So begins Peony’s unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow–as Lisa See’s haunting new novel, based on actual historical events, takes readers back to seventeenth-century China, after the Manchus seize power and the Ming dynasty is crushed. Steeped in traditions and ritual, this story brings to life another time and place–even the intricate realm of the afterworld, with its protocols, pathways, and stages of existence, a vividly imagined place where one’s soul is divided into three, ancestors offer guidance, misdeeds are punished, and hungry ghosts wander the earth. Immersed in the richness and magic of the Chinese vision of the afterlife, transcending even death, Peony in Love explores, beautifully, the many manifestations of love. Ultimately, Lisa See’s new novel addresses universal themes: the bonds of friendship, the power of words, and the age-old desire of women to be heard.
Book
Lost Men
by Brian Leung
After two decades of estrangement that followed the death of his Caucasian mother, Westen Chan joins his father, Xin, on an emotionally charged trip to China, during which both men reveal their individual pain.
Book
The Queens of K-Town
by Angela Mi Young Hur
Twenty-six-year-old Cora Moon comes back to Manhattan's Koreatown after an absence of ten years. The vision of a girl standing on the edge of a building hurtles Cora back into memory to her first summer in K-town, where along with her new friends, she got lost in the maze of nightclubs and room salons, mini-marts and private dining rooms behind rice-paper doors.
Book
The Bone Garden
by Tess Gerritsen
Julia Hamill is pulled into a nineteenth-century mystery when she discovers a human skull bearing the signs of a violent death in her backyard.
Book
Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures
by Vincent Lam
Following four young medical students and physicians, this debut collection of 12 interwoven short stories from 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize-winner Lam is a riveting, eye-opening account of what it means to be a doctor.Hachette Book Group USA
Book
A Free Life
by Ha Jin
"From Ha Jin, the widely acclaimed, award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash, comes a novel that takes his fiction to a new setting: 1990s America. We follow the Wu family - father Nan, mother Pingping, and son Taotao - as they fully sever their ties with China in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and begin a new, free life in the United States." From the bookjacket.