Anthology of Literature by Koreans in Japan

Into the Light: An Anthology of Literature by Koreans in Japan, edited by Melissa L. Wender, is the first anthology to introduce the fiction of Japan’s Korean community (Zainichi Koreans) to the English-speaking world. The collection brings together works by many of the most important Zainichi Korean writers of the twentieth century, from the colonial-era “Into the Light” (1939) by Kim Sa-ryang to “Full House” (1997) by Yu Miri, one of contemporary Japan’s most acclaimed and popular authors.

“This groundbreaking anthology is urgently needed. It will be of particular interest to the growing numbers of English-language readers wanting to know about the experiences of migrants and minorities. The high-quality translations will also be useful in the classroom in a number of fields including Japanese literature and history, comparative literature, gender studies, and diaspora studies.” —Steve Rabson, professor emeritus, Brown University

October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3490-6 / $22.00 (PAPER)

Short Stories by Wakako Yamauchi

Secret desires, unfulfilled longing, and irrepressible humor flow through the stories of Wakako Yamauchi, writings that depict the lives of Nisei, second-generation Japanese Americans. Through the medium of Yamauchi’s storytelling, readers of Rosebud and Other Stories enter the world of desert farmers, factory workers, gamblers, housewives, con artists, and dreamers. Elegantly simple in words and complex in resonance, her stories reveal hidden strength, resilience, and the persistence of hope.

“Wakako Yamauchi is one of the foremothers of Asian American writing. Her prose is sharp, her voice strong, her dialogue true. Each story in Rosebud is a little gem that the reader turns slowly, sending glints of light off in unexpected directions. It is not often we get to hear the voice of an older Asian American woman in fiction, and that voice is richly present here in stories that celebrate change, memory, relationships, things that are lost . . . and kept.” —Paul Spickard, University of California, Santa Barbara

Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Intercultural Studies
October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3260-5 / $19.00 (PAPER)

A Memoir of World War II Interment in the Philippines

Hours after attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers stormed across the Philippine city of Baguio, where seven-year-old Curt Tong, the son of American missionaries, hid with his classmates in the woods near his school. Three weeks later, Curt, his mother, and two sisters were among the nearly five hundred Americans who surrendered to the Japanese army in Baguio. Child of War: A Memoir of World War II Internment in the Philippines is Tong’s touching story of the next three years of his childhood as he endured fear, starvation, sickness, and separation from his father while interned in three different Japanese prison camps on the island of Luzon. Written by the adult Tong looking back on his wartime ordeal, it offers a rich trove of memories about internment life and camp experiences.

“This unique work, a memoir written in a retrospective fashion through the eyes of a child, offers an alternate view of events surrounding the World War II internment of American civilian families by the Japanese. A pre-teen sees different aspects of life in an internment camp which adults may not notice or attach significance to, and yet they tell volumes about camp conditions, the tenor of Japanese treatment, and the nature of the various Japanese commandants. Anyone interested in issues of internment would find this rich and unusual cache of memories eye-opening.” —Frances B. Cogan, author of Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines, 1941–1945

October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3539-2 / $27.00 (PAPER)

Korean Adoptees and Their Journey toward Empowerment

Korean adoptees have a difficult time relating to any of the racial identity models because they are people of color who often grew up in white homes and communities. Biracial and nonadopted people of color typically have at least one parent whom they can racially identify with, which may also allow them access to certain racialized groups. When Korean adoptees attempt to immerse into the Korean community, they feel uncomfortable and unwelcome because they are unfamiliar with Korean customs and language. The Dance of Identities, by John D. Palmer, looks at how Korean adoptees “dance,” or engage, with their various identities (white, Korean, Korean adoptee, and those in between and beyond) and begin the journey toward self-discovery and empowerment.

Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Intercultural Studies
October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3371-8 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

Latest in the ABC Chinese Dictionary Series

The ABC English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary (ECCE), edited by John DeFrancis and Zhang Yanyin, is a student-oriented bilingual dictionary that, like other dictionaries in the ABC series, organizes Chinese words by their pronunciation as written in pinyin. This innovative, straightforward alphabetical organization allows the user to find most words more quickly and easily. It also facilitates the comparison of words that are pronounced similarly or identically, which is not possible in traditionally-ordered dictionaries. The series’ alphabetical ordering has been imitated in other dictionaries, but ECCE is still unique in that it offers detailed and authoritative coverage of grammar (parts of speech, constructions, and examples) and orthography (both simplified and complex characters as well as pinyin). The ECCE contains 67,633 entries: 29,670 in the English-Chinese section, 37,963 in the Chinese-English section.

The dictionary is a handy 4.5 x 7.5 inches with a plastic flexcover.

ABC Chinese Dictionary Series
October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3485-2 / $20.00 (PAPER)

Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China Now in Paperback

Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China, by Yingjin Zhang, is now available in paperback. In this milestone work, Zhang, a prominent China film scholar, proposes “polylocality” as a new conceptual framework for investigating the shifting spaces of contemporary Chinese cinema in the age of globalization. Questioning the national cinema paradigm, Zhang calls for comparative studies of underdeveloped areas beyond the imperative of transnationalism.

Critical Interventions
October 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3408-1 / $26.00 (CLOTH)