BookDragon is a book review blog produced by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program (APAP). BookDragon is an education, outreach, and research initiative that features literary works which highlight the contributions of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans to the American experience and world cultures, two of the grand challenges of the Smithsonian Institution’s Strategic Plan. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
Remember the title of Katherine Boo’s new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, because you will see it on upcoming nominee lists for the next round of Very Important Literary Prizes. That Boo won the Pulitzer in 2000, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2002, became a staff writer for The New Yorker in 2003 (contributor since 2001) after 10 years with The Washington Post, and is just now publishing her debut title, will guarantee media coverage. That Beautiful is an unforgettable true story, meticulously researched with unblinking honesty, will make Boo’s next awards well-deserved.
From November 2007 to March 2011, Boo became a regular fixture in Annawadi, “the sumpy plug of slum” next to the constantly-modernizing international Mumbai airport, and home to 3,000 inhabitants “packed into, or on top of 355 huts.” Settled in 1991 by Tamil Nadu laborers from southern India hired to repair an airport runway, 21st-century Annawadi sits “where New India collided with old India and made new India late.” Encircling Annawadi are “five extravagant hotels,” luxurious evidence of India’s growing global presence: “’Everything around us is roses,’” describes an Annawadian, “’And we’re the sh*t in between.’” In this fetid microcosm, everyday dramas range from petty jealousies to explosive violence fueled by religion, caste, and gender.
At the center of Boo’s story is garbage trafficker Abdul, the oldest son and prime earner of the 11-member Husain family who comprise almost one-third of Annawadi’s three-dozen Muslim population. Thoughtful, quiet Abdul, who is 16 or 19 – “his parents were hopeless with dates” – his ill father, and his older sister stand accused of beating their crippled neighbor One Leg and setting her on fire. For three years, the family is victimized by a labyrinthine legal system controlled by open palms constantly demanding payment.
Life continues in Annawadi: Asha, a lowly-paid kindergarten teacher, works her growing political connections toward escaping the slum, determined her daughter Manju will become Annawadi’s first college graduate. Manju’s best friend Meena wants something more than to be a trapped, arranged teenage bride: “Everything on television announced a new and better India for women,” but “marrying into a village family was like time-traveling backward.”
The toilet cleaner Mr. Kamble is literally dying to raise enough money for a new heart valve so he can continue to shovel sewage and feed his family. The tiny scavenger-turned-thief Sunil (first introduced to Western readers in Boo’s February 2009 New Yorker article) worries that he will remain forever stunted, but at least he’s not a “baldie” like his taller, younger sister whose rat bites have become “boils [that] erupted with worms.” Meanwhile, thieving Kalu recreates the latest Bollywood films with his talented impersonations, entertaining slum kids who will never witness such marvels themselves.
Mumbai, for its marvelous rebirth, remains the largest city in an India that, in spite of being “an increasingly affluent and powerful nation … still housed one-third of the poverty, and one-quarter of the hunger, on the planet.” With the wealth of India’s top 100-richest equaling almost a quarter of the country’s GDP, today’s gap between top and bottom is virtually unfathomable.
Having built her lauded career on capturing the experiences of those living in some of America’s poorest communities, Boo moves “beyond [her] so-called expertise” to her husband’s country of origin, ready to “compensate for my limitations the same way I do in unfamiliar American territory: by time spent, attention paid, documentation secured, accounts cross-checked.” Once the Annawadians accepted the novelty of her foreign presence, “they went more or less about their business as I chronicled their lives” on the page, on film, on audiotape, in photos.
Throughout such careful documentation, the one element missing – very much to her credit – is Boo herself. Beautiful is by no means a personal memoir; it is not a socioeconomic study on poverty, nor a political treatise on widespread corruption. Beautiful is pure, astonishing reportage with as unbiased a lens as possible about specific individuals who populate a clearly demarcated section of ever-changing Mumbai.
The details of Boo’s process – with a glimpse into her experiences – are added in the “Author’s Note” at book’s end. Further details about Boo follow in “A Conversation with Katherine Boo” conducted by Random House power editor Kate Medina. Before ever “meeting” Kate Boo, readers thoroughly experience Annawadi with Abdul, One Leg, Manju, Sunil, and so many memorable others. Boo’s presence as the silent reporter remains so discreet throughout that she virtually disappears as you journey deeper and deeper, unable to turn away.
Review: Christian Science Monitor, January 26, 2012
Readers: Adult
Published: 2012
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Indian, Nonethnic-specific
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
Allow me to start with two immediate thoughts about content and delivery. Content: Today’s Mexican narcos, the Colombian cartels, the Afghan/Pakistani smuggling rings utterly pale in comparison to the British and American opium runners demanding access to 19th-century China. You might have studied the distant Opium Wars via textbook facts and figures, but you probably didn’t have the sort of visceral, being-there experience as Amitav Ghosh provides here.
Delivery: Read, do not bother listening to either of the two Ibis Trilogy titles (hope springs eternal for #3). Phil Gigante who voices Sea of Poppies gives the strangest accents to the characters, including an inexcusable ‘ching-chong’ for Baboo Nob Kissin. Thankfully, the man gets to speak fluently as narrated by Sanjiv Jhaveri in River of Smoke. BUT Jhaveri’s recitation of Robert Chinnery, the illegitimate mixed-race son of George Chinnery (the English painter, a historical figure, although Robert is seemingly Ghosh’s creation), is SOOOO riddled WITH (!!!) non-existent OVERpunctuaTION and flamBOYant OVERemphasis in his cadence as to make the young man sound like a grating stereotype on some failing teen drama. So really, get the books only and let your own voice give breath to Ghosh’s brilliant characters, unaided!
River begins “in a far corner of Mauritius,” where a now-elderly Deeti resides over her sprawling clan, telling stories from her adventurous life. Backtrack to 1938, when Sea of Poppies ended with a daring five-man escape from the Ibis. Of the Sea cast, Ah Fatt reunites briefly with his father, Bahram Modi, the shrewd merchant son-in-law of a powerful Bombay Parsi family; Ah Fatt manages to get the former Raja Neel Rattan Halder hired as Modi’s munshi (writing secretary) aboard his ship Anahita headed to Canton. Meanwhile, on Mauritius, Paulette finds both an employer and mentor in botanist Fitcher Penrose who was an admirer of her late father. She joins Penrose on his ship Redruth as he sets course for China to collect rare plant specimens.
Convergence happens in Canton’s foreign quarter, Fanqui-town, a lively cosmopolitan enclave (although no foreign women allowed). River‘s narrative follows Bahram Modi’s journey with a loaded cargo that should be enough to buy his freedom from his greedy in-laws, and the lively experiences of Paulette’s childhood friend Robert Chinnery who is sent to Fanqui-town in Penrose’s employ to track down the mythical “Golden Camellia.” The foreign traders are most anxious about their overstocked opium, awaiting permission to unload. What’s illegal in their own countries demands to be dumped in China in the name of free trade … but the Chinese government has had enough and are finally ready to reclaim their addicted country. Let the war begin … literally.
Ghosh combines history and fiction here with seamless grace as he meticulously weaves actual documents, people, and events with his own unforgettable characters. The result is entertaining and astonishing … and will surely leave you impatient for more. Yes, book 3 is coming … although it can’t here soon enough for some!
Readers: Adult
Published: 2011
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Chinese, Indian, South Asian
Crouching Tiger by Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Yan Nascimbene
Celebrate the lunar Year of the Water Dragon with Ying Chang Compestine‘s latest picture book which reminds us all again (gently and poignantly) about the value of patience and perseverance (especially relevant in this Dragon year!), the wisdom of elders, and the importance of cultural connections.
Ming Da greets his grandfather upon his arrival from China with a bow, just “as Mom had told me to.” When he sees his grandfather practicing tai chi the next morning, he immediately wants to join in, but not before he shows off his own version of kung fu “kicks and punches.” Tai chi is slow, and makes Ming Da’s legs and arms heavy and wobbly. “As the weeks passed, I felt cheated,” Ming Da complains. “Maybe Grandpa didn’t know real kung fu.”
Ming Da’s disappointment leads him to avoid Grandpa: he reads on the bus on the way to school, hides in his room, even resorting to headphones to shut out his grandfather. But one morning, Ming Da watches Grandpa avert a serious accident, saving two people on the street: “In a smooth motion, Grandpa crouched like a tiger, swept up a leg and kicked the board, breaking it neatly in half.” Ming Da’s shocked reaction – ”‘Wow, Grandpa, how did you do that?’” – is met with the expected answer: “‘Lots of practice,’” followed by “‘I started at your age.’” Finally Ming Da is ready to train.
When New Year arrives, Grandpa gives Ming Da “a red silk jacket embroidered with dragons.” [That mythical beast had to pop up somewhere!] Ming Da’s embarrassment over “this silly jacket” eventually becomes beaming pride as he experiences quite a memorable night, filled with tasty treats, hóng bāo (red envelopes with lucky money), and an unexpected, unforgettable starring role in Chinatown’s traditional lion’s dance.
Ming Da’s journey toward recognition of his grandfather’s accomplishments which leads him to honor his own dual heritage is gloriously captured in the soft watercolors of veteran illustrator Yan Nascimbene‘s full-page panels: Grandpa in his traditional suit with Ming Da side-by-side in his jeans and perpetually untied high-top sneakers; dozing, shoe-less Mom reading her Chinese magazine while wild-haired, booted Dad delves into a thick English book, a Picasso-esque Cubist canvas hung next to a floral brush painting on the back wall; the diverse, overflowing (literally onto the facing page) crowds of New Year celebrants scattered like confetti throughout Chinatown. From the mini-Ming Das demonstrating tai chi poses on every left page, to the aquarium rug, to the bus ads, to the pigtailed neighbor and her dog peeking over the fence, Nascimbene makes sure that Compestine’s story of youthful self-discovery is wonderfully enhanced by his many delightful, surprising details.
To check out more of Ying Chang Compestine’s titles on BookDragon, click here.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Chinese American
Tesoro by Natsume Ono, translated by Joe Yamazaki
More and more, I’ve noticed book cover flaps yielding important tidbits (which makes me a bit concerned about such covers going astray, especially for picture books handled by so many little hands!). But worry aside, how fitting to find this on the front flap about Tesoro: “In Italian, it means: • Treasure, a treasured thing • Something or someone precious.”
Precious treasure is exactly right: Tesoro offers 15 diverse vignettes – gathered and translated for the first time into English – from manga powerhouse Natsume Ono. “These may be clumsy stories, but they’ve become memorable and important to me,” Ono writes in a closing note. “It’s like a treasure to me.” Nice to know we’re in synch!
Ono’s signature simple style with the oversized, most soulful eyes is bookended here with stylized bears (the front cover offers a sneak peek) that show a sharply different genre from her human creations. As adorable as her little bears are (check out her graffiti-ed trashcan when she “had an office job,” hee hee ho ho!), I remain mesmerized by the eyes … and myriad of instantaneous expressions those eyes define: relief in “Inside Out” when a husband learns of his wife’s impending return; everyday love in “Moyashi Couple” between a “bean sprout” elderly husband and wife; gratitude in “Three Stories About Bento 1/3″ over an unexpected lunch delivery, poignant joy in “Three Stories About Bento 3/3″ as a father speaks to his late wife through his son’s full round belly (wept over that one!); heartbreak in “senza titolo #1″ as a father looks on at his too-young dying son; disappointment in “Christmas Morning” in both father and son over a missing present; and tearful adoration in “senza titolo #6″ over “the best man in the world, Dad.”
Ono has earned her international chops for her manga-turned-anime series Gente (and its related single volume Ristorante Paradiso) and House of Five Leaves, but my personal favorites remain her smaller efforts, especially not simple, and now the tesoros in her Tesoro.
For all of Natsume Ono’s titles posted on BookDragon, please click here.
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2011 (United States)
TESORO - ONO NATSUME SHOKI TANPENSHU © Natsume Ono
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.
Which Side Are You On? The Story of a Song by George Ella Lyon, artwork by Christopher Cardinale
If you’re an American of a certain age, and went to public school when music class was still considered relevant and mandatory, you’ll most likely recognize this historical song. Here’s the link to legendary folk singer Pete Seeger’s rendition.
“What’s going on here?” the front book flap asks. “Let Omie, the eldest, tell it – eighty years after it happened.” That 80 has since become 81, but the story’s power doesn’t age. Welcome to Harlan County, Kentucky in 1931 where the men work long, dangerous hours in the coal mines: ”We live in a coal company house on coal company land, and Pa gets paid on scrip that’s only good at the company stores. He says the company owns us sure as sunrise. That’s why we’ve got to have a union.”
But Pa’s views don’t make him popular with the controlling coal company, nor with the local sheriff and his “gun thugs.” With mounting threats, Pa goes on the run. Ma stands firm, announcing “‘We need a song’” to her frightened children hiding under the bed. “‘This ain’t easy, but sometimes you’ve got to take a stand,’” she insists. “This is how the night goes: bullets through the walls, talk under the bed, words on the page.” When Pa returns, he recognizes that Ma’s newly composed rallying cry will “bring folks together … And it still does.”
Harlan resident George Ella Lyon tells the remarkable story of how Florence Reece wrote “Which Side Are You On,” the song that “has been sung by people fighting for their rights all over the world.” The broad strokes of graphic artist and muralist Christopher Cardinale (who imbued magic realism onto the pages of Luis Alberto Urrea’s Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush) add a sense of urgency, the firm depictions emphasizing the determination to survive and succeed.
After the story — which came to Lyon via “Bev Futrell, a member of the Reel World String Band, who heard it from Reece herself” – Lyon’s informative “Author’s Note” is not to be skipped. “Whenever one side has all the power in a relationship something needs to change,” she writes, while also acknowledging that “[l]ike anything we humans make, unions are not perfect.” Greed and power plague unions, too, but unions can play a positive role in improving work conditions and establishing fair workers’ rights, she explains.
Like the song’s rallying cry, Lyon’s storytelling is ultimately a powerful call to seek social justice at any age: “It’s never too soon to become informed, decide what you think, and speak out. You have a choice. You have a voice. We are how change happens.” Great advice for the 18+ set, too, especially in this election year …
Readers: Children
Published: 2011
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Nonfiction, Nonethnic-specific
Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap, illustrated by Mari Araki
“Dear Mr. Jean Paul Sartre, I know that you are dead and old and also a philosopher. So, on an obvious level, you and I do not have a lot in common.” Thus begins 15-year-old Tina’s class project for her English Honors elective on existential philosophy. And what an angst-ridden, beguiling, contemplative, delightful exploration of teenage-hood it proves to be.
Tina has just started the second half of her sophomore year at Yarborough Academy, “just a boring school started by some guy who died eons ago.” She’s “a pretty good student. A decent violin player. And a bit of an intellectual.” She has two older (overachieving) siblings – her architect-trained artist sister, her internet wife-seeking surgeon-to-be brother – who, now well into their 20s, are dealing with their own self-discovery. To the “question I get asked the most … What are you, REALLY?” she answers “I’m an Alien (But my parents are Indian.).”
In just six short months (eight if you count the “Epilogue”), Tina’s high school-centered life goes through some existentially significant changes. She loses her best friend to “a new group of friends with whom she could discuss slutty clothes and cheesy poetry,” has her first date and first kiss (sort of twice), gets cast as the lead in the school play, falls in love, gets lovesick, and fights off what she calls “CEM or Chronic Existential Malaise.”
Lest I’ve somehow caused you to think even for a millisecond that this is your same-old, same-old teenage tale, please let me dispel any such misconceptions: creators Keshni Kashyap (who is also a filmmaker, and making her publishing debut here) and Mari Araki are far too clever and original for that. How else could they combine Krishna, a Samoan Mormon convert, “tacky pieces of art like statues of white people doing ballet and kissing,” Rashomon, Camus and Kierkegaard, skateboards, nirvana, and horse tranquilizers to get such stellar results?
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2012
A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman by Lisa J. Shannon, foreword by Zainab Salbi
Can anyone really understand such a number: 5,400,000. The death of a single loved one can leave you staggering and lost … how can anyone even fathom 5.4 million human beings who have been murdered in a single country … since 1998!
Lisa Shannon, a Portland art director, lived a contented life in her cozy Victorian home with her charming partner in both business and life. Yet when her father dies, she’s paralyzed and can’t even drag herself off the couch, relying on Oprah for company. Then on January 24, 2005, a 20-minute segment highlighting the ongoing violence against women in the Congo catapults Shannon to the other side of the world.
“I have to do it now, before it becomes one more thing I meant to do.” So Shannon joins 6,000 Oprah viewers and sponsors two Congolese women. Then she starts running: 30.16 miles to raise 31 more sponsorships through Women for Women International (whose legendary founder, Zainab Salbi, writes the Foreword here). Her first time out, she raises $28,000, enough to change the lives of 80 Congolese women and their children.
She takes her runs on the road, organized as the Run for Congo Women (runs are happening regularly). And in 2007 she arrives in the Congo … where she will meet the most unforgettable women, each survivors of unimaginable atrocities and tragedies. These are her thousand sisters (and more) by whom she will be changed forever though laughter, tears, desperation, anger, gratitude, and finally furaha – joy. Amidst the horror, furaha sana – ”so much joy.”
I read A Thousand Sisters without pause on a long flight that took me away from where most of the book happens – Africa. I had started Sisters numerous times while traveling next door to the Congo, but the font size in the paperback version was so tiny as to make my aging eyeballs roll into the back of my head in defeat. Inflight, I found myself extremely thankful for the sharp, focused beam of the personal overhead light … yet another head-thunking reminder of the choices I have, the privileges I’ve been granted, mostly because the random circumstance of my birth far away from ‘the worst place on earth to be a woman.’
Now that I know, now that you know … what will we do? Shannon is certainly prepared … two of the final pages, entitled “Find Your Own Furaha,” gives you seven immediate actions “you can do for the Congo right now.” All you have to do to get started is open to page 1 …
Readers: Adult
Published: 2010
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, African, Nonethnic-specific
Stir It Up by Ramin Ganeshram
Food writer Ramin Ganeshram shares her Indo-Caribbean culinary prowess in her debut title for younger readers about eighth-grader Anjali Krishnan who really knows how to stir things up … and make it all taste great. Working part-time in her family’s busy roti shop – which specializes in Trinidadian comfort cooking – in Richmond Hill, Queens with her father and grandmother, Anjali has delicious dreams: “I want to have my own show about Caribbean food. No one has done that yet. I’ll be the first.”
At 13, she’s well on her way to chef-dom, learning all the family recipes from her grandmother, testing and sharing her own unique creations with some of the shop’s appreciative regulars, and taking serious classes at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan. Then Anjali gets a chance to compete in a reality show featuring kiddie chefs: making the finals turns out to be the easy part, but convincing her parents to let her go to the auditions proves to be a much tougher challenge, especially since tryouts are the exact same date and time as the admissions test for a coveted spot to Stuyvesant High School.
Regardless of her parents’ old-world immigrant insistence on education first, Anjali is not about to give up her dream, especially when she’s can practically smell the curry: “‘… we curry just about everything.’” As talented as she is, however, Anjali’s still got a thing or two to learn about cooking up true success.
With all her cooking and writing experience, Ganeshram gets the blend just right in this toothsome tale about food, family, and feeding not just the belly, but nourishing the mind and soul, as well. The recipes read deliciously, too … as I’m an utter disaster in the kitchen, maybe I can rally my teenagers to give me a helping hand!
Readers: Middle Grade
Published: 2011
Freedom’s a-Callin Me by Ntozake Shange, illustrated by Rod Brown
From the power duo who created We Troubled the Waters comes another memorable volume detailing the African American experience – this time, re-imagining the death-defying, life-saving journey from slavery to freedom along the Underground Railroad.
Combining powerful verse and richly textured paintings, Ntozake Shange and Rod Brown begin in the fields, where the horror of “that whip bouncing off somebody’s back” means a momentary “chance to get / right out of here” while the brutal overseer is otherwise engaged. In spite of attack dogs, hunger, and exhaustion ahead, the mere possibility of “ah may may be free” drives the dangerous journey onward.
Season after season, brave souls attempted freedom by “followin the north star,” relying on “this one good white man [who] got a clue for me,” choosing “death or freedom,” outrunning the slave trackers, mourning the “one of us [who] didn’t make it north,” and doing anything and everything possible to get to “freedom’s land” … until “finally ah am ridin through free air.”
From the legendary Sojourner Truth to “treacherous” slave hunters, to a wealthy abolitionist who may “look jus’ like mastah / oh but he aint,” to all the brave heroes – black and white – who never gave up on the promise of freedom regardless of personal cost: “Lawdy Lawdy we been blessed / Glory Hallelujah”!
As we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. today, we must also remember the heroes whose names did not survive history, but whose selfless deeds helped ensure a better future. Freedom’s a-callin’ us all: listen carefully and ensure that the courageous, all-too-often anonymous struggle for equity and justice continues throughout the world …
Readers: Children
Published: 2012
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Poetry, African American
The End of the World by Sushma Joshi
Few Nepali writers have thus far landed on western bookshelves, with only two exceptions who come immediately to mind – elegant Samrat Upadhyay (Arresting God in Kathmandu, The Royal Ghosts) and activist Manjushree Thapa (The Tutor of History, Seasons of Flight). So to find another Nepali author writing in English is a gratifying discovery indeed.
Born and based in Kathmandu, Sushma Joshi is another hybrid global writer (and filmmaker), with her Indian and American education, as well as numerous fellowships and residencies all over the world. First published in Nepal in 2008, Joshi’s debut short story collection (which includes an acknowledging – small world – nod to Thapa), was one of 57 titles long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in 2009. Reprinted late last year, World is immediately available via Kindle (for just $2.99 currently). [NO, I am absolutely not a sudden Kindle-convert, but impatience will make me do strange things!]
What proves most memorable about the collection’s eight stories is an open earnestness in Joshi’s storytelling. Her writing is guileless and energetic, at times refreshing although occasionally a bit clumsy. If her writing seems to lack a polished, sustained subtlety, her directness gives her stories a welcome sense of truthful urgency.
Notables include “Cheese,” in which a servant boy must wait decades to finally taste the precious foreign treat called “chij,” “Law and Order” in which a wannabe officer settles for the local police force but can’t live according to the law, “The End of the World” about the ironic sense of freedom people briefly experience thinking that tomorrow will never come, and “The Blockade” about a man who has spent a year away in foreign menial labor in order to support his family and returns home to disaster.
In each of Joshi’s stories, everyday people are merely trying to survive challenges far beyond their own making, whether strict social stratification, unending war, widespread corruption, political upheavals, or all-consuming natural disasters. Nepal’s last tumultuous decades have left the citizens with little room for anything more than the struggle to just get through the day. Most tragic of all is a sense of resigned acceptance that leaves little hope for a future desperately in need of change.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2011 (United States)
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Short Stories, Nepali
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