Literature Corner Blog

“And though my parents took us far away from the site of their grief… certain shadows stretched far. Casting a gray stillness over our childhood…hinting at a darkness we did not understand but could always feel”  In this beautifully illustrated memoir titled, The Best We Could Do, Thi Bui tells the story of her family’s journey of fleeing Vietnam and migrating to the United States. During the initial draft of writing this book, she felt that it came off as too ‘academic,’ and thought of…

Trigger Warning: This graphic novel depicts and describes instances of sexual violence.   Figure 1.1. Book Cover  Grass, illustrated by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim and translated by Janet Hong, is a harrowing graphic novel that narrates the stories of comfort women during World War II. [1] Specifically, Keum chronicles the story of Granny Lee Ok-Sun’s experience as a young child growing up during Japanese occupation and her eventual capture into sexual slavery at comfort stations.  Prior to the start of the Second World War, Granny Lee Ok-Sun…

“Every adoption requires a family to be broken apart. Yet, you never hear about that grief”  Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom in Palimpsest: Documents From a Korean Adoption illustrates the process of investigating her adoption documents to better understand her origin story. Lisa is a Korean transnational adoptee, illustrator, cartoonist, graphic designer, and adoptee rights activist who beautifully captures the multi-faceted and difficult experience of being a transnational and transracial adoptee within this graphic novel. When becoming pregnant with her first child, Lisa began to question further…

Where did the Chinese sit on the bus during the era of Jim Crow segregation? In the documentary, Blurring the Color Line, director Crystal Kwok tackles this question, unpacking her family’s history as grocery store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Augusta, Georgia. Shedding light on this little-known part of American history, Kwok aims to bridge these two groups  while confronting difficult conversations about race in Asian American communities. Kwok’s grandmother Pearl, born in San Francisco Chinatown, moved to Augusta in 1927. Her parents…

“The Poppy War” is a heavy, dark, and unprecedented debut by R.F. Kuang. The first fantasy war novel out of a trilogy covers topics of classism, colonization, and genocide through the experiences of its young female protagonist who survives in a world familiar of Chinese history. Shamans clash with plot points drawn from events like the Opium War, second Sino-Japanese war and an atmosphere of the Song dynasty.  The main character of the novel is Rin, a dark-skinned and poor war orphan. To avoid her…

What does it mean to be successful? Can you be happy and successful? Min Jin Lee takes a stab at answering these questions, with the backdrop of her home in mind. Lee sets Free Food for Millionaires in Elmhurst, her hometown in Queens, and into the family of Casey Han, the daughter of Korean immigrants who run the local laundromat. The questions of success and happiness thus take on a different spin: how can one find success and happiness while making their parents’ sacrifices worthwhile?…