Sansei and Sensibility

Yamashita’s] trademark flamboyance comes forth and you can really feel her mind at work. It’s that torrent of voice she can spin out of anything, whether riffing on a visit to the gastroenterologist in ‘Colono:Scopy or testing out Marie Kondo’s world-famous tidying methods in ‘KonMarimasu’. . . . It doesn’t take a Janeite to enjoy these stories, or to sense that Yamashita’s engagement with Austen runs somewhere between pastiche and parody.” —Jed Munson, Full Stop “What do you get when Jane Austen meets the Japanese-American community of contemporary California? This smart, witty, perfectly pitched collection of stories — definitely the best Austen adaptation since Clueless.”—Refinery29 “Yamashita’s latest work sparks joy and acknowledges pain, remembers history and sources pop culture, traverses the modern American West, and returns to Japanese traditions—all in under 200 pages. By the book’s finale, the only thing you’ll want to do is pick up everything Yamashita has ever written. . . . Yamashita seamlessly incorporates the Sansei experience into all seven of Austen’s timeless stories, and the result is brilliant, impactful, and of course, hysterical. . . . An unmissable work.” —Paperback Paris “Yamashita’s dizzying amalgamation of fiction and history results in something that is both speculative and truthful. . . . Offers such Sansei/Janeite delights as an LA County Mansfield Park, a 1960s Emma with revolutionary inclinations, and a Lady Susan consisting of post-war postcards and aerograms between Tokyo and California. . . . A gratifying jigsaw puzzle of a book, certain to enrapture readers with both its individual pieces and the larger picture those pieces create.” —The Arkansas International “Dazzling. An extraordinarily inventive collection of short stories that takes us from Japan to Brazil to the fractured heart of suburban postwar Japanese America. Whether she is riffing on Jane Austen, channeling Jorge Luis Borges, or meditating on Marie Kondo, Yamashita is a brilliant and often subversive storyteller in superb command of her craft.” —Julie Otsuka “Through vignettes, recipes, and correspondence, master writer Karen Tei Yamashita takes us through the rabbit hole of Japanese America—in particular, her hometown of Gardena, California, where an ethnic community culturally transformed a middle-class bedroom town. Part Ozu meditation of everyday life, part modern folk tale with colorful characters like a truth-telling dental hygienist, Sansei and Sensibility offers a unique and necessary perspective of what it means to be the aging grandchild of Asian immigrants, wondering what you will leave behind for the next generation. As in all of her books, Yamashita deconstructs form and genre to create a work that both delights and challenges.” —Naomi Hirahara “This capacious collection is witty, sharp—funny at times, angry at times—always amazing, and never, never dull. I think Jane Austen would be surprised, but delighted. I surely am.” —Karen Joy Fowler Praise for Karen Tei Yamashita 2010 National Book Award Finalist 2011 American Book Award Winner “This powerful, deeply felt, and impeccably researched fiction is irresistibly evocative and overwhelming in every sense.” —Publishers Weekly “The extraordinary testimony of a revolutionary past. . . . I Hotel is crammed with detail, with real-life pamphlets, speeches, quotes, and news reports humming and crackling in the background. The whole thing makes for an astonishing, and carefully structured, collage of both local and global movement.” —The Nation “Immensely entertaining.” —Newsday “Shaped and voiced with literary flair, this is clearly a book Yamashita felt compelled to write, and her sense of purpose makes this historical excavation feel deeply personal.” —Kirkus “Yamashita incorporates satire and the surreal in prose that is playful yet knowing, fierce yet mournful.”—San Francisco Chronicle