#asian literature

[elysiumaze]

Mieko Kawakami in, Heaven.

[fictionalbond]

Love In the Big City (2024) - EP. 3 & 4 PART TWO - A BITE OF ROCKFISH, TASTE THE UNIVERSE

[papenathys]

1 & 5 for the book ask thing

1 - Fave Books

Gun to my head, I had to narrow it down to five books and felt like drinking bleach throughout. In no particular order, they are as follows:

Providence Girls by Morgan Dante ( @ghostpoetics on tumblr): A historical cosmic horror novel set in 1940s New England which retells two Lovecraftian horror tales in the form of a tragic sapphic love story. Fucking broke me. Exists at the very specific juncture of my mind between the lesbian eroticism and healing from trauma of The Handmaiden, and the body horror and monster romance of The Shape of Water.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer: I'll be honest the movie was whatever for me but this book was what kids these days call a serve...a banger even. Don't know how the author described the surreal morphing sentient, geographic, sort of sci-fi sort of psychological– sort of straight up eldritch horror?? but it terrified the shit out of me, because everything was so beautiful, so unsettling and so distorted, that by the end I wanted to be consumed alive by the fungi and the lighthouse moss too. Also the biologist is to me what Camille Preaker and Abigail Hobbs are to vaguely sad white girls on tumblr.

Walking Practice by Dolki Min: An allegory for queer peoples' alienation in South Korea, wrapped up in a gruesome, dark and funny little story about a crash-landed alien that kills people via dating app stalking. Not only was this book fucking fantastic visually in terms of typesetting and illustrations, but also the translation was genuinely great. And while the narration was very funny, there were also many passages that were gut-punchingly tragic and raw, and captured how it feels to be trans, queer and disabled in a homophobic, conservative society.

Blue Hunger by Viola Di Grado: Gorgeous litfic novella about a young Italian teacher grieving the loss of her brother, who moves to Shanghai and has a toxic, obsessive, dreamlike affair with a Chinese lesbian, one of her new students. This one is not for everybody because the romance is extremely imbalanced, unhealthy and nasty but also I don't care because the writing was so hauntingly beautiful. Think cityscapes, urban loneliness, lesbian sex in dirty alleys and grief striking you at the oddest, sweatiest, most surreal hour of night.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen: Scathingly powerful political-historical satire novel, about a Viet Cong spy in the South Vietnamese army who escapes to USA during the 1970s fall of Saigon, and once there, finds himself repulsed and fascinated by the heinous facade and global crimes perpetuated by the Western intellectual, political and military complex that he both loathes and lusts after. Easily the best book I read this year, banger from beginning to end, reminded me why I love historical fiction. It TEARS apart American imperialism, the politics of colonial/orientalist academia, propaganda film, and anti-communist fear mongering in the 70s, during the Vietnam war. Delicious and horrifying usage of the unreliable narrator. Extremely relevant, timely read today. If there's one book you take from this list, it should be this one.

5 - Book I would recommend to anyone

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds. It's a YA novel about a teen Black girl who moves to rural Georgia with her parents to look after her terminally ill, estranged maternal grandmother, but ends up having a whirlwind summer as the dark, violent and tragic secrets of her family's past–and that of her mother's childhood hometown–comes to light. This is possibly one of the best young adult books I ever read, it felt like a cross between a coming-of-age film, and a classic historical transgenerational family saga. It was at once a love letter to finding queer and Black joy and community in a conservative Southern town, but also harrowing grief about historic racism and police brutality and how trauma informs identity, as does love. I mean this in the most respectful way possible: in parts this reminded me of Toni Morrison's Beloved, that's how fucking good it was.

[samireads]

Japanese books with cats on the cover 🐈

[benitariums]

a story, li-young lee

[benitasroom]

b's favorite poems (003): because it's summer, ocean vuong (from "night sky with exit wounds")

[mahgnib]

Editions of Wu Ch’eng-En’s “Monkey”, a/k/a “ Monkey King”, a/k/a “Journey to the West”

[azulcotton-blog]

[arkipelagic]

Excerpt from the novel “Child of All Nations” (1980) by Praemodya Ananta Toer

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

*Originally published in Chinese with the title "Kuángrén Rìjì"; sometimes translated as "A Madman's Diary"

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Sawako Ariyoshi

Sawako Ariyoshi was born in 1931 in Wakayama City, Japan. Ariyoshi was one of Japan's most prolific and popular postwar writers. Her writing largely explored the lives women, but focused on topics outside of romantic love. Airyoshi wrote bestselling novels, as well as short stories, plays, and nonfiction. Her story "Jiuta" was a finalist for the Akutagawa Prize. Ariyoshi's novel The River Ki sold more than 3 million copies, and her novel The Twilight Years sold two million copies before becoming a paperback. In 1970, she won the prestigious Japanese Literature Grand Prix. Ariyoshi's work has been translated into twelve languages.

Sawako Ariyoshi died in 1984 at the age of 53.

[ireneinreverie]

"You’re so kind. It makes sense. Because we’re always in pain, we know exactly what it means to hurt somebody else." —Heaven, Mieko Kawakami

[fictionalbond]

Love In The Big City (2024) - EP. 4

Part 2 - A BITE OF ROCKFISH, TASTE THE UNIVERSE

[papenathys]

Remember when I wrote on my bookstagram that Walking Practice is a direct descendant of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor (shapeshifting, trans queer bodies, sexuality and the myriad of possibilities of intimacy and community when you have total agency over your body) and then the official translator of the novel aka Victoria Caudle herself DMed me on Instagram and said she loved my thoughts on the book because while working on the translation of Walking Practice, she actually used Paul Takes the Form as a reference material for tone and structure.

Anyway. Read both books!!!!

[tagithi]

heaven by mieko kawakami

[benitariums]

to the guanacos at the syracuse zoo, chen chen (from “when i grow up, i want to be a list of further possibilities”)