An earlier manuscript titled The Music Child was shortlisted for the Man Asia Literary Prize in 2008. Alfred A. Yuson’s previous novels are Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe and Voyeurs & Savages. Again, this third novel explores the marvels skirting the boundaries of realism, or goes much farther beyond after establishing adequate suspension of disbelief. Genres are blurred in the crafting of long fiction that is both poetry and prophecy. This the author does with visionary whimsy. In this narrative, the central protagonist’s wondrous voice is stilled time and again by the deaths of his loved ones. Bereft of song, the boy finally learns to speak, then learns to turn the words of others into music on paper. The processes of mimicry and extrapolation result in an extended poetic suite that invents legends as well as a mythical conflict involving the imperialism of languages. The music child’s extraordinary talents are matched by those of the young mahjong queen who can’t be beaten in the game since the angels of her youth speak through her fingers. Around them, foreign friends and relations representing former colonizers provide a framework of discovery, while themselves dancing to the historic chorus of destiny in the magical East. The music child and the mahjong queen endear themselves to one another through the palpable vocabulary of flowers.

Texts written by Southeast Asian migrants have often been read, taught, and studied under the label of multicultural literature. But what if the ideology of multiculturalism—with its emphasis on authenticity and identifiable cultural difference—is precisely what this literature resists? Transitive Cultures offers a new perspective on transpacific Anglophone literature, revealing how these chameleonic writers enact a variety of hybrid, transnational identities and intimacies. Examining literature from Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, as well as from Southeast Asian migrants in Canada, Hawaii, and the U.S. mainland, this book considers how these authors use English strategically, as a means for building interethnic alliances and critiquing ruling power structures in both Southeast Asia and North America. Uncovering a wealth of texts from queer migrants, those who resist ethnic stereotypes, and those who feel few ties to their ostensible homelands, Transitive Cultures challenges conventional expectations regarding diaspora and minority writers.

In Long Drawn Out Trip: My Life, Gerald Scarfe tells his life story for the first time. With captivating, often thrilling stories, he takes us from his childhood and early days at Punch and Private Eye, through his long and occasionally tumultuous career as the Sunday Times cartoonist, to his film-making at the BBC and much-loved designs for Pink Floyd's The Wall and Disney's Hercules. Along the way he has drawn Churchill from life, gone on tour with The Beatles and thoroughly upset Mrs Mary Whitehouse. It is a very personal, wickedly funny and caustically insightful account of an artist's life at the forefront of contemporary culture and society.

How has a game brought together Americans and defined separate ethnic communities? This book tells the first history of mahjong and its meaning in American culture. Click-click-click. The sound of mahjong tiles connects American expatriates in Shanghai, Jazz Age white Americans, urban Chinese Americans in the 1930s, incarcerated Japanese Americans in wartime, Jewish American suburban mothers, and Air Force officers' wives in the postwar era. Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. This mass-produced game crossed the Pacific, creating waves of popularity over the twentieth century. Annelise Heinz narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women's culture. As it traveled from China to the United States and caught on with Hollywood starlets, high society, middle-class housewives, and immigrants alike, mahjong became a quintessentially American game. Heinz also reveals the ways in which women leveraged a game to gain access to respectable leisure. The result was the forging of friendships that lasted decades and the creation of organizations that raised funds for the war effort and philanthropy. No other game has signified both belonging and standing apart in American culture. Drawing on photographs, advertising, popular media, and dozens of oral histories, Heinz's rich and colorful account offers the first history of the wildly popular game of mahjong.

Thanks to the successes of directors and actors like John Woo, Jackie Chan, and Chow Yun-Fat, the cinema of Hong Kong is wildly popular worldwide, and there is much more to this diverse film culture than most Western audiences realize. Beyond martial arts and comedy, Hong Kong films are a celebration of the grand diversity and pageantry of moviemaking--covering action, comedy, horror, eroticism, mythology, historical drama, modern romances, and experimental films. Information on 1,100 films produced in British Hong Kong from 1977 to 1997 is included here.

“The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational.” —Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians Amy Tan’s beloved, New York Times bestselling tale of mothers and daughters, now the focus of a new documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir on Netflix Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

As the Hong Kong handover boom fizzles into the Asian economic bust, a young American couple's marriage and their careers tumble into a maze of television news, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie.

From the multi-awarded Filipino author of novels, essays, and short stories comes a coming-of-age and riveting tales of hope and innocence. This collection of contemporary Philippine fiction by Alfredo Yuson, also known as Krip Yuson, has been awarded several times and has been published in many platforms. The compilation includes titles such as Romance and Faith on Mount Banahwa, Big Street, Voice in the Hills, Avenida Vignettes among others.