Book picks similar to
Awaiting Trespass (A Pasión) by Linda Ty-Casper


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In the Country


Mia Alvar - 2015
    Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere—and, sometimes, turning back again. A pharmacist living in New York smuggles drugs to his ailing father in Manila, only to discover alarming truths about his family and his past. In Bahrain, a Filipina teacher drawn to a special pupil finds, to her surprise, that she is questioning her own marriage. A college student leans on her brother, a laborer in Saudi Arabia, to support her writing ambitions, without realizing that his is the life truly made for fiction. And in the title story, a journalist and a nurse face an unspeakable trauma amidst the political turmoil of the Philippines in the 1970s and ’80s.In the Country speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home. From teachers to housemaids, from mothers to sons, Alvar’s powerful debut collection explores the universal experiences of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined. Deeply compassionate and richly felt, In the Country marks the emergence of a formidable new writer.

Rich in Love


Josephine Humphreys - 1988
    As she helps guide her family through its discontent, Lucille discovers in herself a woman rich in wisdom, rich in humor, and rich in love.

Killing Time in a Warm Place


José Y. Dalisay Jr. - 1992
    Told in the voice of its protagonist, Noel Ilustre Bulaong, the narrative travels through familiar social and literary territory: the coconut groves of Bulaong's childhood, Manila's hovels, the Diliman Commune, "UG" safehouse, martial law prisons, and the homes and offices of the petty-bourgeoisie. It is a story of false horizons, of betrayal, compromise, and guilt, and not incidentally of the contemporary middle-class Filipino's migration from the village to the metropolis to the outside world.

The Ten Thousand Things


Maria Dermoût - 1955
    There Felicia finds herself wedded to an uncanny and dangerous world, full of mystery and violence, where objects tell tales, the dead come and go, and the past is as potent as the present. First published in Holland in 1955, Maria Dermoût's novel was immediately recognized as a magical work, like nothing else Dutch—or European—literature had seen before. The Ten Thousand Things is an entranced vision of a far-off place that is as convincingly real and intimate as it is exotic, a book that is at once a lament and an ecstatic ode to nature and life.

Wounded Little Gods


Eliza Victoria
    Ten years ago, the town's harvest failed utterly, and the people---believing the gods had abandoned them--left their farms and moved on.Now, on a Friday before a long weekend, Regina ends her workday at an office in Makati, and walks home with a new colleague, Diana. Following a strange and disturbing conversation between them, Diana does not show up at work on Monday, nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday.On Thursday, Regina finds a folded piece of paper In her bag. In Diana's handwriting are two names and a strange map that will send Regina back to her hometown. Here, in her quest to find Diana, she encounters rumors of genetic experiments, stumbles upon a strange facility that no one seems to know about, finds herself in places that don't exist, and discovers that people are not who they seem to be. And the biggest question in the bizarre chain of events is not what, or how, but why?Wounded Little Gods is a tale that brings mythology to a sci-fi thriller that's filled with a sense of place--a place where gods are in many ways human and point to the ways in which humans can be inhumane. As Regina struggles to unwind the knots surrounding the mystery of this facility and the people connected to it. She discovers that she is more intertwined in the strange events in her hometown than she ever knew.

Out of Time


Paula Martinac - 1990
    She buys the book and her fate becomes inextricably linked with the four women in the photos.Richly atmospheric and featuring a memorable cast of characters, Out of Time is a delightful novel about history, love, and the persistence of passion.

Sweet Summer: Growing up with and without My Dad


Bebe Moore Campbell - 1989
    I am grateful for Bebe Moore Campbell and for such a Sweet Summer." --Maya Angelou"Mature insight, as well as a deft gift for language, gives this memoir its poignant, honest shape." --Chicago Tribune"An uplifting reflection on family love." --San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle"A remarkable achievement." --Philadelphia Inquirer"Poignant...a beautiful tribute." --Newsday"Campbell is a master." --Entertainment Weekly"Touching....[A] candid account and loving tribute to a special man." --New York Daily News

Heat and Dust


Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - 1975
    Longing for passion and independence, Olivia is drawn into the spell of the Nawab, a minor Indian prince deeply involved in gang raids and criminal plots. She is intrigued by the Nawab's charm and aggressive courtship, and soon begins to spend most of her days in his company. But then she becomes pregnant, and unsure of the child's paternity, she is faced with a wrenching dilemma. Her reaction to the crisis humiliates her husband and outrages the British community, breeding a scandal that lives in collective memory long after her death.

Lantern Slides: Short Stories


Edna O'Brien - 1990
    Rich and humorous, full of bitterness and despair, struggle and boldness, these twelve new stories resonate with O'Brien's artistry. "...Her stories are brilliantly realized, and often very funny".--Joyce Carol Oates. Advertising in New York and Los Angeles.

The Anatomy of Being


Shinji Moon - 2013
    Broken up into four chapters, she holds your hand and takes you inward with her, from skin to flesh, to flesh to bones, from bones to all that lies within. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, The Anatomy of Being marks a very distinct time in a young girl's life, and aches and aches to be heard and devoured. 2013 Goodreads Choice Awards Poetry Finalist

Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years


Margaret Mead - 1972
    An enduring cultural icon, she came to symbolize a new kind of woman, one who successfully combined marriage & motherhood with a career & scholarship with a singular concern for its role in the lives of ordinary people. Even today, when memoirs of successful women scientists & scholars remain scarce, Blackberry Winter, 1st published in '72, provides a rare glimpse of a pioneering woman's formative journey. In her chapters "On Being a Granddaughter" & "The Pattern My Family Made Me," Mead examines the wisdom she gained from her maternal grandmother as well as the inheritance she recieved from her ancestors, & how her upbringing fueled her desire for a fulfilling career that would reflect her own emerging values. We are treated to captivating portraits of bohemian life in NYC in the '20s; her early days at the American Museum of Natural History, where she met her longtime mentor, Franz Boas, & friend, Ruth Benedict; & 1st field trip to study adolescent girls in Samoa. Near the book's end, in "On Being a Grandmother," she reflects on the legacy she leaves her descendants, indeed, all of humanity. This autobiography, reissued for a new generation of readers, will appeal to any eager to discover a woman of our century who made her way in a world seldom hospitable to the dreams & accomplishments of women.

Fifty Russian Winters: An American Woman's Life in the Soviet Union


Margaret Wettlin - 1992
    Packed with details of everyday life from giving birth in a Soviet hospital to living in a Moscow communal apartment. Forced to give up her American citizenship during Stalin's reign, Wettlin was coerced into becoming an informant for the KGB. She describes what Russia was like during and after World War II, her travels from the Baltic states to Siberia, Outer Mongolia, Leningrad, Uzbekistan and Georgia. Her mesmerizing book offers a background for understanding Soviet events that molded the Russian mind--from revolutionary enthusiasm to a complete repudiation of communism.

The Quiet Ones


Glenn Diaz - 2017
    Soon a couple of friends join in, and the operation proceeds smoothly up until they quit, vowing to take the secret to their graves. A month later, a phone call at 4 in the morning tells Alvin that the police are on their way.At once a workplace novel and a meditation on history and globalization, The Quiet Ones is a grimly humorous take on a soul-sapping, multi-billion-dollar industry. In interlocking narratives, it explores lives rendered mute by irate callers, scripted apologies, and life’s menial violence, but which manage to talk back every now and then, just as long as the Mute button is firmly pressed.Winner, 2017 Palanca Grand PrizeWinner, 37th National Book Award

Flowering Judas


Katherine Anne Porter - 1993
    It is the story of Laura, an idealistic woman, who travels to Mexico from Arizona at the age of twenty-two to assist the Obregón Revolution. This casebook on "Flowering Judas" addresses Porter's ambivalence surrounding her roles as woman and artist and also attests to the profound influence of Mexico upon her work. Readers of this early tale will not be surprised to learn that although Porter was a practicing feminist in her life and her work, she actually eschewed the feminist label.Virginia Spencer Carr brings her own sharply focused biographer's eye to the introduction, further illuminating the story and the superb critical essays that it provokes. The casebook includes the authoritative text of the story itself, Porter's own statement regarding the genesis of this highly acclaimed work, an important interview, a collection of significant essays on "Flowering Judas" and the historical, cultural, and personal milieu from which the tale evolved, a bibliography, and a chronology of Porter's life and work.

Jasmine


Bharati Mukherjee - 1989
    But the force of Jasmine's desires propels her explosively into a larger, more dangerous, and ultimately more life-giving world. In just a few years, Jasmine becomes Jane Ripplemeyer, happily pregnant by a middle-aged Iowa banker and the adoptive mother of a Vietnamese refugee. Jasmine's metamorphosis, with its shocking upheavals and its slow evolutionary steps, illuminates the making of an American mind; but even more powerfully, her story depicts the shifting contours of an America being transformed by her and others like her -- our new neighbors, friends, and lovers. In Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee has created a heroine as exotic and unexpected as the many worlds in which she lives. "Rich…one of the most suggestive novels we have about what it is to become an American." -- The New York Times Book Review