Breadcrumb
Literature
Evaporation
Claire Hsu Accomando
Evaporation is a gift. Claire Hsu Accomando writes with wonder, precision, and cinematic wisdom. The remembrances and stories of China, France, and America are rendered with tenderness, intelligence, and joy. What a remarkable life there is inside this book, the poet's expansive heart. —Lee Herrick, California Poet Laureate
Claire Hsu Accomando was born in Switzerland to a Chinese father and French-Armenian mother. She spent her early childhood in rural France, separated from her father who was in China during WWII. Her memories of the war years are collected in her memoir, Love and Rutabaga. Accomando's poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, Toyon, Bullets into Bells and other publications. Her artwork has appeared in Three Hearts, Moon Water, and JustArts: Call & Response. Her nonfiction has been published in Ararat, Critical Flame, Artweek, and elsewhere. Accomando lives in Bonita, CA, and defines poetry as distillation: You start out with a truckload of potatoes and end up with a shot of vodka.
Love and Rutabaga
Claire Hsu Accomando
In Love and Rutabaga, Claire Hsu Accomando reflects on her formative years growing up in war-torn France. Born in 1937 to a French mother and Chinese father, Accomando was just a child when her father departed for China on diplomatic duty in 1941. Left behind, she and her younger brothers were raised by their mother and grandparents in the small village of Rahon during the German occupation.
Despite the fear and uncertainty of World War II, Accomando paints a surprisingly joyful and richly textured portrait of those years. Her grandparents' home became a sanctuary - not just for their family, but for anyone in need of refuge. Her grandmother's love of music and storytelling brought beauty and wonder into a world clouded by conflict.
Blending humor, tenderness, and the innocence of a child's view, Accomando recounts the everyday moments that defined her childhood. The title's pairing of "love" and "rutabaga" captures the dual essence of affection and survival that sustained her family. Through engaging storytelling and vivid detail, she offers a unique memoir of resilience, warmth, and unexpected happiness in the midst of war.
Chile, en particular
Lilianet Brintrup Hertling
Chile, en particular o “gritar en chileno como [lo hacen] los piñones, el mote, los pájaros y las empanadas, tal vez como murmuraban el huemul y la razón”, de Lilianet Brintrup Hertling, es un libro que sorprenderá al lector. Sus referencias geográficas, históricas, culturales, culinarias y biográficas comienzan con la manducación: se mastican, se tragan, se degluten formando un bolo alimenticio inmediatamente descriptivo, valorativo y etopéyico.
Trinh Cong Son and Bob Dylan: Essays on Songwriting, Love, War and Religion
John C. Schafer
In this accessible deep-dive into the careers of Trịnh Công Sơn and Bob Dylan, Schafer retells countless colorful stories from the two artists’ lives drawn from a wide range of Vietnamese and English-language sources. Trịnh Công Sơn and Bob Dylan evaluates the relationship between two of the 20th century’s most beloved and essential songwriters, in the process illuminating Vietnamese and American views on spirituality, romance, philosophy, identity, and conflict.
Readers will find English translations of Trịnh Công Sơn’s essays and lyrics by Cao Thị Như Quỳnh, many here in translation for the very first time.
Schafer critically examines the singers’ lifestyles, relationships, and public statements, meticulously collecting primary and secondary sources into a handy reader of 20th century global literary culture. Trịnh Công Sơn and Bob Dylan is an essential read for fans of Bob Dylan and Trịnh Công Sơn, and a substantive addition to the libraries of comparative literature scholars.
Oaxaca y más allá, microrelatos bilingües del corazón
Rosamel Segundo Benavides-Garb,
James Ephraim Gaasch,
Rolando Fernándo MartÍnez Sánchez,
Francisco José Ruiz Cervantes
Oaxaca y más allá, microrrelatos bilingües del corazón, presenta una dimensión de la creatividad artística abundante que florece en este estado del sur de México. Los diecisiete escritores—ocho mujeres y nueve hombres—ofrecen aquí un total de treinta y seis relatos. Algunas historias presentan una relevancia tradicional y atemporal, mientras que otras se asocian a una estética diferente, una narrativa de ruptura y una exploración de la representación misma. De manera profunda, los microrrelatos de este breve volumen captan también nuestra humanidad compartida, y nosotros, los editores, apostamos a que las voces de esta colección nos conmuevan y unan.
Oaxaca and beyond, bilingual microstories from the heart, presents a slice of the rich artistic creativity flourishing in this southern state of Mexico. The seventeen writers—eight women and nine men—offer here a total of thirty-six stories. Some present a timeless, traditional relevance, while others are associated with a different aesthetic, a narrative of rupture and exploration of representation itself. In a profound way, the microstories in this slender volume also capture our shared humanity, and we the editors wager that the voices in this collection will touch and connect us.
Discursos del viaje del agua: Siglos XV-XXI
Lilianet Brintrup Hertlin, Gladys Ilarregui
Estos textos pasados por agua nacen del “IV Simposio Libros, Viajes, Viajeros y el discurso del agua” que tuvo lugar en la Europa-Universität Flensburg en Julio de 2022, frente al Mar Báltico. En un marco interdisciplinario cuyo tema central fuera el agua, se abrió un diálogo para sumergirse en las rutas marítimas de los diarios de viajeros, la influencia de los océanos en las literaturas y en los escenarios acuáticos de poblaciones diversas dentro y fuera de la imaginación histórico-literaria. Este volumen no pretende abarcar la totalidad de lo presentado en esa ocasión, sino reunir una serie de ensayos sobre el agua en Latinoamérica y en Europa.
The Gray Bird Sings: The Extraordinary Life of Betty Kwan Chinn
Karen M. Price
“Touched by childhood tragedy, Betty Chinn brings hope to those who have fallen on hard times. Left homeless as a child in China, Chinn became mute. When she came to America, she found both her voice and her mission: aiding those without shelter on our own shores. ” -Barack Obama, awarding Betty the Presidential Citizens Medal
She’s the humanitarian compared to Mother Teresa, hailed as the “Hong Kong Angel,” and beloved by her community in Humboldt County. She miraculously survived the most vile brutalities to become a beacon for humanity and an inspiration for all. Meet Betty Kwan Chinn.
Migraciones de la sangre: Textos de escritoras latinoamericanas
Lilianet Brintrup Hertling and Gladys Ilarregui
Migraciones de la sangre Textos de escritoras latinoamericanas, permite que diez autoras Marjorie Agosín, Esther Andradi, Lilianet Brintrup Hertling, Carolina Depetris, Ana María Dolores Huerta Jaramillo, Gladys Ilarregui, Isabel Lipthay, Blanca López de Mariscal, Sandra Lorenzano y Nora Strejilevich, dibujen los trayectos de la sangre en múltiples escenarios: los cuerpos, la sexualidad, los migrantes, los sistemas culturales, sociales y políticos del presente y el pasado a través de un collage de estilos literarios. La sangre con su fuerza atraviesa archivos, viajes, memorias cotidianas, lugares de destierro y migración. Leer este libro es asomarse al hilo de sangre que dibuja y une emotivamente nuestra historicidad.
The Tomboys of Cherry Lane
Morgan Flynn
You can pack a lot of friendship, feelings, and field hockey into 45 years. Playing on a field hockey team teaches you a lot about yourself and others—including some things you didn’t want to know. Friends who turn out to be as poisonous as toadstools may be the same ones who help you and become a part of who you are. They might even be the friends who will be with you for the rest of your life.
Rescue of Memory
Samuel P. Oliner and Ronnie Swartz
What motivates people to help, to care, to risk their own lives for others? What differentiates rescuers, helpers, carers, and bystanders?
There is no single explanation. Anyone who offers you a single explanation of why people do good things is oversimplifying. Empathy is very important. So is courage. And compassion. Bystanders, I want to impress on you, are not evil people; they are not people who should be put in a ship and sent to outer space. They are also good human beings, but they have not internalized some of the ethics of caring, of social responsibility, of knowing. They may not have learned from moral parents, role models, or ethical communities that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. That’s what makes me so optimistic at this stage in my life. In fact, teaching caring, compassion, and altruism is possible, is learnable, is doable. We can move millions of people from a role of neutral bystander—who say, “Well, these are not my people,” “I am too busy,” “It’s too dangerous,” “I don’t have the time,” and so forth. These people can be sensitized to the consequences of indifference. I know it is possible to teach people to care and then we can transform the bystanders, perhaps, into more helpers, altruists, and compassionate actors. -Dr. Samuel P. Oliner. September 9, 2003, “America at Night Reading Room”
Quiebres en California
Lilianet Brintrup Hertling
"To write in order to understand” is the motto that propelled the writing of this volume. The four parts of the book portray nature, cities and their inhabitants, in a constant journey between Northern California and Southern Chile. This poetic discourse collects fragments of a life dedicated to travel and to the observation of the natural and cultural environment from the point of view of a traveler who is “just passing by” the Californian territory.
Escribir para entender, fue el moto que impulsó la escritura de este volumen. Las cuatro partes del libro tematizan la naturaleza, las ciudades y sus habitantes, en un constante viaje de ida y vuelta por el norte de California y el sur de Chile. Dicho discurso poético recoge fragmentos de una vida dedicada al viaje y a la observación del medio natural y cultural al estilo de un(a) viajero(a) que “está de paso” por el territorio californiano.
Growland
Lelia Moskowitz
In 2002, Celeste flees the city and the latest disaster in her marriage. Looking for refuge in the remote hills of Northern California, she unwittingly immerses herself and her innocent daughters in a community of illicit marijuana growers. With nowhere else to go, Celeste scrambles to find safety and stability for her and her daughters in an isolated realm of secrets and silence.
Far Less
Kathy Wollenberg
From atop a towering redwood tree, seventeen-year-old Jesse can see beyond the difficult reality of his life on the ground. Homeless, Jesse camps in the forest with his drug-addicted mom and little sister. Diligent about showering, laundry, and school work, Jesse is determined to keep his circumstances a secret. But one girl cares enough to find out the truth.
The Sauntering
Zev Levinson
The Sauntering, an epic-length poem, chronicles a lifetime of walking across the landscapes of this planet, the author always being compelled to move forward to the next horizon. From his early connections with his heritage, to coping with grief as a young teenager after his father's death, to immersion in a tapestry of cultures and the natural world and poetry itself, Zev Levinson discovers how the search for meaning sometimes becomes meaning enough. His obsession to ramble reflects an openness to the unending pathways that life presents. Ultimately, Zev shows that to be truly alive is its own creation of ceaseless topographies.
Võ Phiến and the Sadness of Exile
John C. Schafer
Võ Phiến and the Sadness of Exile describes the life and work of one of the most respected writers in the Vietnamese diaspora. A well-known writer in Vietnam before he sought refuge in the United States in 1975, Võ Phiến continued to write in the U.S. He published numerous stories and essays and edited a seven-volume collection of works written in South Vietnam from 1954 - 1975. In this first book-length study in English of a modern Vietnamese writer, Schafer introduces readers to an author who has much to teach us about war, revolution and exile in a strange land.
Song of Six Rivers
Zev Levinson
Song of Six Rivers relates one man’s life-changing experiences throughout the Humboldt Bay region of northern California, depicting the area’s geography and history along the way, through both poetry and archival photography. When the muse of this epic poem, Guy Kuttner, died unexpectedly, Zev Levinson heard his voice imploring him to sing of the land they both love. As a roving teacher, Zev had come to know the Six Rivers terrain and communities intimately. He put his pen to the task of meeting Guy’s daunting challenge, confronting mortality and loss as he ventured to understand our connection to earth. At its heart, this endeavor strives to weave poetry into the everyday lives of those who dwell behind the redwood curtain.
Peacekeepers: A Humboldt Love Story
Jeff Conner
He’s a small town police officer, committed to law and order.
She’s an activist, outlaw, and free spirit.
They live in close proximity, but their lives are worlds apart.
But together they undertake a journey of the heart, one that will take them to places unanticipated.