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  • Writer's pictureIris Peng

Unravel Yourself with Literature by Asian Women

Updated: Apr 13, 2021

This piece is the first in a series of reviews and reflections on Asian literature.


“I loved reading as a child, but I haven’t finished a book out of enjoyment in ages.”


Sound familiar? This sentiment is not uncommon among college students, especially at rigorous institutions such as Georgetown. Reading more for pleasure is always a New Year’s resolution that slips under piles of academic articles and essay assignments, so when COVID-19 gave me the precious gift of time, I knew what to do with it.


As an Asian woman, I cannot help returning to literature by authors who share this aspect of my identity. Art by Asian women unravels me, leaves me raw and bare, exposes my facades, and forces me to deal with my identity in a unique way. It is no wonder that 30 of the 113 books I read in 2020 were by Asian women.


Here are two pieces of literature that have particularly struck me:


The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang


Author Rebecca F. Kuang was just 21 years old when she published her debut novel, The Poppy War. Halfway through her undergraduate degree at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, she took a gap year in China, where she wrote the book as a method of exploring her family history.


Set in a fantasy world inspired by 20th-century and Song Dynasty China, The Poppy War follows dark-skinned orphan Fang Runin through her training at Sinegard, the Nikara Empire’s elite military academy. While she enters disadvantaged compared to her wealthy classmates, she discovers that she possesses shamanic powers, which help her survive at Sinegard. But when she is called to the front lines in a conflict between Nikara and the Federation of Mugen, she is forced to make an impossible choice: winning the war or keeping her humanity.


I could not stop talking about this book after reading it. I had read historical fiction set in Asia and fantasy that deals with geopolitical and moral themes, but The Poppy War was the first novel I found that blended the two: think Ender’s Game set during the Opium Wars, then throw in elements of Chinese folklore. While reading, I played a game of finding allusions to history, Chinese mythology, and competitive debate. In addition to worldbuilding, Kuang’s characters are beautifully crafted. I fell in love with them not in spite of their personality flaws, but because of them.


However, don’t be mistaken thinking The Poppy War is a young adult novel. It details brutal atrocities based on the Rape of Nanking, drug addiction, self-harm, genocide, ableism, torture, sexism, and other difficult themes surrounding war appropriate for a mature audience. It will make you tear your heart to pieces. Some chapters are so horrific you might need to set the book down. But once you get started, five hundred pages will never pass by so quickly.


 

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

In this collection of nine short stories that won the Pulitzer Prize, Jhumpa Lahiri crafts several poignant tales about the diverse Indian immigrant experience. She explores themes of love, politics, class differences, food, and grief, which English professor Noelle Brada-Williams encourages readers to treat as intentionally-connected motifs. She notes that in doing so, readers are “not only [receiving] the additional layers of meaning produced by the dialogue between stories but a more diverse and nuanced interpretation of members of the South Asian diaspora.”


For me, short stories are almost always a hit or a miss. The endings of most leave me wanting more, unsatisfied by the sudden termination of a tale I was just becoming immersed in. Admittedly, a few of the stories in this collection leave me with this sentiment.

But because the stories fit so well together as a whole — each one flowing seamlessly into the next — my dissatisfaction quickly disappeared. After finishing the last story, I felt warm and whole.

Another problem I have with many short stories is that due to their short lengths, I often feel detached from their characters. Thankfully, Lahiri smoothly dodges this bullet. As she explores her characters’ qualms and heartfelt desires, she dives deep into their thought processes — even deeper than most novels. Her characters are human. They are raw. Multidimensional. For a society that continues to dehumanize South Asians, and for an Asian community that privileges East Asian heritage, Lahiri’s stories are a must-read.


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