Search results for ""Author Lan Samantha Chang""

A powerful exploration of the Asian American experience, Hunger weaves the forces of war and magic, food and desire, ghosts and family into poignant tales of love and loss. Celebrated author Lan Samantha Chang illuminates the lives of first-generation immigrants from China, culturally and emotionally uprooted from their homeland, who mistrust connection even as they hunger for attachment—and shows how their choices shape their children. The characters who inhabit this extraordinary collection, “a work of gorgeous, enduring prose” (Helen C. Wan, Washington Post), are caught between the burden of their past and the fragility of their unchartered future.

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For years, the residents of Lake Haven, Wisconsin ignored the whispered troubles about the Chao family, if only to keep eating at the best restaurant in town. But when tyrannical patriarch Big Chao is found frozen to death in the family's meat freezer, scandalous events force the community to turn its attention to the three Chao sons. DAGOU, presupposed heir to the business. MING, successful banker, determined to sever ties with Haven's Asian community once and for all. JAMES, naive college student, who is only just learning of his family's past. As the family's dog mysteriously disappears, and Dagou "Dog Eater" Chao is held on trial for his father's murder, the Chaos' turbulent history spills into the public eye while a small town looks on in disbelief...

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'A work of gorgeous, enduring prose' Washington Post 'Luminously elegiac stories... Complex and rueful... gives voice to internal struggles, catalogues of loss' New York Times Book Review A modern classic of American fiction: a haunting collection of stories that explore the lost loves and complex desires of Chinese-American immigrant families The novella and five stories that make up this collection tell of displaced lives, and exiled imaginations. Far away from their ancestral home, a grandmother tells her granddaughters stories of their river ancestors. Having relocated to the American Midwest, a young couple purposefully drive all remnants of their lives in China into the shadows. In the title novella, a woman recounts her tragic marriage to an exiled musician, whose own disappointments nearly destroy their two daughters. In exquisitely crisp, spare and subtle prose, Lan Samantha Chang untangles how an immigrant can hunger for love, for acceptance, and for what they have left behind. An undeniable classic of modern American literature, Hunger is a haunting collection of stories, suffused with quiet beauty and longing. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe Lan Samantha Chang is the author of the award-winning books Hunger and Inheritance, and the novel All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. Her work has been translated into nine languages and has been chosen twice for The Best American Short Stories. A recent Berlin Prize winner, she has received creative writing fellowships from Stanford University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Samantha lives in Iowa City, where she is director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her most recent novel, The Family Chao, is also published by Pushkin Press and was one of Barack Obama's Books of Summer 2022.

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For years, the residents of Lake Haven, Wisconsin ignored the whispered troubles about the Chao family, if only to keep eating at the best restaurant in town.

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The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant’s delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, content to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. Whether or not Big Leo Chao is honest, or his wife, Winnie, is happy, their food tastes good and their three sons earned scholarships to respectable colleges. But when the brothers reunite in Haven, the Chao family’s secrets and simmering resentments erupt at last. Before long, brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo is found dead—presumed murdered—and his sons find they’ve drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three brothers: Dagou, the restaurant’s reckless head chef; Ming, financially successful but personally tortured; and the youngest, gentle but lost college student James. As the spotlight on the brothers tightens—and the family dog meets an unexpected fate—Dagou, Ming, and James must reckon with the legacy of their father’s outsized appetites and their own future survival. Brimming with heartbreak, comedy, and suspense, The Family Chao offers a kaleidoscopic, highly entertaining portrait of a Chinese American family grappling with the dark undercurrents of a seemingly pleasant small town.

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