Fiction. Cultural Writing. Asian American Studies. Yamashita's innovative melding of fiction and essay explores issues such as labor, nationalism, and cultural diaspora. When the grandchildren of Japanese immigrants to Brazil move to Japan to assume the manual work native Japanese people no longer want, their need for cultural belonging and their homesickness for details of their birthplace clash with the status quo. This book of hybrids -- merging collage with text, story with history -- opens a door onto one of the most important issues of the new century. Karen Tei Yamashita is a winner of the American Book Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Award. Also available from SPD are her books BRAZIL-MARU and THROUGH THE ARC OF THE RAIN FOREST, which the New York Times Book Review wrote progresses toward an apocalyptic resolution that spreads out like a Bosch triptych reproduced by Gauguin...Ms. Yamashita presents a critique of human waste and stupidity that is fluid and poetic as well as terrify

Author Hometown: SANTA CRUZ, CA USA



About the author: Heralded as a "big talent" by the Los Angeles Times and praised by Newsday for "[wrestling] with profound philosophical and social issues" while delivering an "immensely entertaining story," Karen Yamashita is the recipient of an American Book Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Award. A California native who has also lived in Brazil and Japan, she teaches at the University of California-Santa Cruz, where she received the Chancellor's Award for Diversity in 2009.

Reviews:
● interview by Terry Hong in Bookslut