In this week’s Book Box, The Straits Times looks at four books that engage in experiments to give the novel new relevance. SINGAPORE – In this week’s Book Box, The Straits Times looks at four books that engage in experiments to give the novel new relevance. Buy the books at Amazon .
These articles include affiliate links. When you buy through them, we may earn a small commission. Juli Min explores family, identity and love in debut novel Shanghailanders Korean-American author Juli Min chronicles the life of a family in Shanghai, told in reverse chronological order.
PHOTOS: DIALOGUE BOOKS, SHEN WU Korean-American author Juli Min, 36, explores a form of Asian identity different from her own in her debut novel Shanghailanders. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in New Jersey in the United States, she has focused her 288-page novel on the experiences of a mixed family of five living in Shanghai, China. While her protagonist Leo Yang is Chinese, his wife Eko is Japanese-French and their three daughters speak Mandarin and French.
Min tells The Straits Times via a Zoom call from Shanghai where she is based: “These girls don’t have an identity crisis like most immigrant stories about intergenerational conflict or trauma. These girls feel fully Shanghainese. It’s their home, where they grew up.
They’re Asians living in this city and country where they look like the majority. They have a confidence that comes from that, and they’re also beautiful, loved and come fro.