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Award-Winning Korean Translators Show Why “A Petal Silently Falls”
Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton of Seattle are the award-winning translators of numerous volumes of modern Korean fiction. Most recently, the Fultons have received the prestigious literary translation prize from the Daesan Foundation for “There
Read More »Seeing Red
Korea is no stranger to traumatic events. From Mongol subjugation during the Koryo Dynasty to cultural genocide by the Japanese in the twentieth century, Korea has experienced horrors that have affected people long after
Read More »Learning from Edo Japan what ‘Just Enough’ is
Azby Brown, whose “The Very Small House” was reviewed in the International Examiner in 2005 has come out with another gem. In “Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan” (Kodansha International) Brown
Read More »Boxing With Words in a “Young Adult” Ring
Among the requirements of the “Young Adult” – or “YA” – category of “juvenile literature” are that there be an older teenage protagonist; and that sex, drug use and language be strictly limited. So,
Read More »Love’s in the Details:
Love can be found in the fidelity to daily details in “7 Continents 9 Lives” (Bowery Books 2010), by Fay Chiang, a genre-defying collection of poems, prose poems, journal entries and dramatic monologues that
Read More »Loveliest Grotesque
Grotesque, from the Old Italian grottesca (feminine of grottesco, from grotta), literally means “cave painting”. It refers to a style of art that blends human and animal forms, resulting in a fantastical distortion of
Read More »Island World
“No man is an island.” John Donne (1572-1631) On January 20, 2009, Hawaii unwittingly became the focus of the nation when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.
Read More »Outside the Paint: When Basketball Ruled at the Chinese Playground
When Yao Ming’s Houston Rockets came to visit the Seattle Sonics in his rookie season, a Chinese basketball tournament was being held in town and hundreds of Chinese, some of them quite tall, were
Read More »A Media Art Pop Star Conquers the World
This is the most exquisite and elegantly designed catalogue of Mariko Mori I have ever seen. The pure white square book box and book cover almost cautions me to put on white gloves. There
Read More »Paper Pushing
What would you risk for love? “Steer Toward Rock”, Fae Myenne Ng’s latest novel, asks exactly this. Fifteen years after her critically acclaimed first novel “Bone” was released, Ng has captivated us again with
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