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Book reviews: Foreign literature

Book review: The Wandering Ghost

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by Philip Gowman on 7 January, 2010

in Book reviews: Foreign literature

Martin Limón: The Wandering Ghost
Soho Press, 2007

While North of the DMZ we have the ongoing series of the enigmatic Inspector O to keep us entertained with mystery, suspense and action, south of the border we have the maverick military police sergeants George Sueño and Ernie Bascom. Where Inspector O inhabits a contemporary world, Sueño and [...]

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Brief review: A Ricepaper Airplane

28 December 2009 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Gary Pak: A Ricepaper Airplane
University of Hawai’i Press, 1998

Synospis (from the back of the book)
From a hospital bed a dying man unfolds the tale of an arduous life on the fringes of a Hawai’i sugar plantation in the 1920s. There Kim Sung-wha – labourer, patriot, revolutionary, aviator – envisioned building an airplane from ricepaper, bamboo, [...]

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Bamboo and Blood: Inspector O is back on form

11 November 2009 Book reviews: DPRK
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James Church: Bamboo and Blood
St Martin’s Press, 2008

After Inspector O’s slightly disappointing second outing, James Church is back on form with the third novel in the series, Bamboo and Blood. In another fast-paced story, set against the backdrop of the North Korean 1997 famine and the US-DPRK talks in Geneva, Inspector O is given his [...]

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Yuasa Katsuei: a Japanese colonial novelist

16 January 2009 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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A review of two novels set in the Korean colonial era by a Japanese novelist: Kannani (1934) and Document of Flames (1935).

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The end of the line

15 September 2008 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Y Euny Hong: Kept – a comedy of sex and manners
Simon & Schuster, 2006
The author of this entertaining comedy, Y Euny Hong, claims to speak from experience as a surviving descendent of a declining Korean aristocratic family. Making a living now as a journalist, she was given the generous opportunity of 3 pages in the [...]

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The Gyopo PI

23 July 2008 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Leonard Chang: Fade to Clear
Thomas Dunne Books, 2004

This is the third novel featuring the private investigator Allen Choice, a Korean American whose name indicates how far he has moved away from his Korean roots. He can’t speak the language, but he gets annoyed when people call him Chinese or Japanese. He dates a Korean girl, [...]

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James Church: Hidden Moon

14 July 2008 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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(Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)

After A Corpse in the Koryo, the rip-roaring start to the Inspector O series, Hidden Moon comes as a bit of a disappointment. Maybe the freshness of the debut is a tough act to follow, but somehow the first time round Inspector O had more character. He’s still got his quirky interest [...]

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A border-crosser’s tale

22 June 2008 Book reviews: DPRK
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Hyejin Kim: Jia – a novel of North Korea
(Cleis Press, 2007)

A novel about a talented dancer from the wrong family background who finds she needs to escape across the border to China.
Those who have shown an interest in the reports from Amnesty International and Christian Solidarity Worldwide will not be surprised at some of the [...]

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Sex and the City, Korean-style

7 May 2008 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Min-Jin Lee: Free Food for Millionaires
(Random House, 2007)

I hesitated before packing this two-inch thick paperback into my suitcase for a week’s holiday. The cover design doesn’t give much away — a black top hat and slightly messy collection of different typefaces spelling out a title which leaves a lot to the imagination — so it [...]

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Racial tensions in Queens

14 December 2007 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Leonard Chang: Fruit ‘n’ Food
Black Heron Press, 1996

Leonard Chang’s first novel is proof that giving away key elements of the plot in advance need not ruin the enjoyment of a work of fiction. The book starts at the end, with the hero in hospital, blinded and incapacitated. You are told how the story ends. You [...]

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De profundis

26 November 2007 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Cullen Thomas: Brother One Cell — Coming of Age in South Korea’s Prisons
Pan Books, 2007

A “powerful, harrowing and moving memoir”, proclaims the blurb on the back. “A Korean tear in the muscle round the ribs, a Korean hernia…” reads the selective quote. The cover design, a Getty image of hands grasping prison bars, the typeface [...]

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Technology in the wrong hands

23 November 2007 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Robert A Kaiser: Project Yellow Sky — A Korean Conspiracy
(Authorhouse, November 2006)

Those who visit websites with Korea-related content may have come across advertisements for this book in the Google Ads panel. A topical thriller, about the North Koreans trying to steal nuclear secrets… it must be worth putting in the suitcase for a bit of [...]

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Digging to America

18 August 2007 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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(Vintage, 2007)
My slightly random reading patterns in respect of Korea-related books sometimes turns up a gem, sometimes introduces me to an author I wouldn’t otherwise have read, and sometimes proves a disappointment. This book falls into the second category. It came up on my list of Amazon recommendations based on my past purchasing behaviour, and [...]

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James Church: A Corpse in the Koryo

6 May 2007 Book reviews: DPRK
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(Thomas Dunne Books, 2006)

Inspector O is a maverick. No respecter of authority, he answers back to his boss, he drives the departmental car without permission, and even, horror of horrors, refuses to wear his Kim Il-sung badge. Not another cliché cop, you might groan. Well, he doesn’t have a drink problem, doesn’t get his girl, [...]

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James Salter: The Hunters

24 March 2007 Book reviews: Foreign literature
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Penguin 2007 (originally published 1956)

A ripping yarn set among the US fighter pilots in the Korean war. Apart from the passing references to Korean houseboys, and the fact that the dogfights take place over the river Yalu, there’s nothing to distinguish this novel plot-wise from your average Commando war mag. There’s the experienced and well-meaning [...]

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