Ye Chun

An extraordinary debut collection of short stories by a three-time Pushcart Prize winner following Chinese women in both China and the United States who turn to signs and languages as they cross the alien landscapes of migration and motherhood. "The most common word in Chinese, perhaps, a ubiquitous syllable people utter and hear all the time, which is supposed to mean good. But what is hao in this world, where good books are burned, good people condemned, meanness considered a good trait, violence good conduct? People say hao when their eyes are marred with suspicion and dread. They say hao when they are tattered inside." In "Gold Mountain," a young mother hides above a ransacked store during the San Francisco anti-Chinese riot of 1877. In "A Drawer," an illiterate mother invents a language through drawing. In "Stars," a graduate student loses her ability to speak after a stroke. By turns reflective and visceral, the stories in Hao examine the ways in which women can be silenced as they grapple with sexism and racism, and how they find their own language to define their experience.

Sabrina D. 

And somewhere in her vision, Qingxin sees a body of clear water that is also inside her own body-which is her parents' wish for her, to be able to return there, to go back to her breath and know that she can be as calm and clean as water that knows no pain, nor resistance or fear.

Hao quotes

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