Grace Utomo
Artist explores life as Zainichi Korean in debut novel
“The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?” Seventeen-year-old Ginny Park would give anything to find the answer. Multidisciplinary author Chesil uses Ginny to tell her own story in The Color of...
Violinist Natalie Hodges’ debut memoir Uncommon Measure is full of bittersweet nostalgia and dry...
An ideal book review should be just that – a disinterested, third-party opinion about the book’s technical and aesthetic merits. The ideal reviewer should not have any overt professional or personal ties that might...
The fascinating, overlooked story of music educator Shinichi Suzuki, who believed everyone had potential
To make music is to be human. Regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, or ability, all of us experience that tingling rush of antigravity that only lives in song melodies and drum beats. To make...
Start the Year Right with Yoshino and Glasgow’s ‘Say the Right Thing’
“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” my mother used to scold when I was little. I’ll bet a matcha latte that your mother said the same. Then...
Katherine Chen’s vivid historical novel of Joan d’Arc asks what makes a saint
What makes a saint? Globalization yields answers as vibrant and diverse as the people who give them. But what if you asked a French Catholic? Better yet, what if you asked a French Catholic...
Geling Yan’s “The Secret Talker”: an essential talker for 2021
When does a stranger become a lover – and vice versa? Twenty years ago, the question might have evoked a romantic comedy with a fairy tale ending. But in today’s tech-savvy climate, the question...
The age of dignity: Julie Otsuka discusses dementia,human rights and her latest novel
“I feel like in some way every book that I write is about my mother.” Julie Otsuka looks down and laughs, her slender profile framed by shelves bulging with books. She lives in New...
Susie Yang’s debut novel “White Ivy” is a contemporary immigrant narrative about a young...
Cinderella stories never get old, no matter how many versions we read. And contemporary immigrant narratives are so relatable and timely that it’s easy to imagine the trope’s permanent induction into the literary canon.
Debut...
Novelist Ruth Ozeki challenges reality in “The Book of Form and Emptiness”
According to Ruth Ozeki, “Artists and writers want to enact on the page or in the artwork an experience of life that is strange or unfamiliar so that the audience or the reader can...
“First Person Singular”: A singular blend of magic and memoir
Haruki Murakami cultivated personal mystique for decades, only divulging tidbits from his private life if they were relevant to a release. But after 14 novels, five anthologies, and three nonfiction works, the 72-year-old author...