Everlasting Empire is a Korean historical novel written as a murder mystery. The narrator frames the main story with his “discovery” of a 150-year-old manuscript. Because of problems verifying the authenticity of the manuscript, the narrator offers the book not as genuine history but as a story. This compelling tale is set at a pivotal moment […]
Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly has enjoyed tremendous popularity in Europe and America since its debut in 1904. It has also inspired a global-level debate about whether the tragic heroine of the opera, Cho-Cho-san, was based on a real-life model. Starcrossed looks at this controversy and presents compelling evidence that, in fact, there was no […]
The Oriole’s Song is a love story — love of family, of entwined cultures, of life itself — during and after the turmoil of war. This beautiful recollection of an American girlhood in China during World War II is a continual delight with large insights and small moments made exqusite by delicate prose. On May […]