The Asian American Literary Review
The Asian American Literary Review is a space for writers who consider the designation “Asian American” a fruitful starting point for artistic vision and community. In showcasing the work of established and emerging writers, the journal aims to incubate dialogues and, just as importantly, open those dialogues to regional, national, and international audiences of all constituencies. It selects work that is, as Marianne Moore once put it, “an expression of our needs…[and] feeling, modified by the writer’s moral and technical insights.”
Published biannually, AALR features fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, comic art, interviews, and book reviews. Discover Nikkei will feature selected stories from their issues.
Visit their website for more information and to subscribe to the publication: www.asianamericanliteraryreview.org
Stories from this series
Poems: "Spark," "Distances" & "All day people poured into Asano Park"
April 25, 2010 • April Naoko Heck
SparkUse room-temperature water, never ice. Skin holds heat,you think you’re more burned than you are.Your singed hair crimps and smells like eggsthat once cooked on the farmhouse’s old gas stove.Bathwater runs faster than a sink’s, you kneelto turn your face under the tub’s faucet.If you’d followed directions, you’d bein the pasture instead, palming sugar to the horses. Which sent you reeling back, the oven’s flashor pressure, the heat or fear? Obaasan fell forwardbut that was different, that was a great …
Poems: "Conversation with My Mother" & "Translation"
April 18, 2010 • April Naoko Heck
Conversation with My Mother How much fabric was left? Not much. Boro-boro, Obaasan said. Shreds. And your mother recognized her by the fabric Yes. If the fabric was in shreds, she was almost naked? No, she wore white cotton undergarments. And they still covered her body? They covered her body. They weren’t torn like her blouse and pants? They covered her body. What did the pattern of the fabric look like? I don’t remember, but it couldn’t have been beautiful. …
Poem: "The Leaf Book"
April 11, 2010 • April Naoko Heck
The Leaf BookIn the fall of third grade, when my teacherassigns the leaf-book project—collectand name at least a dozen tree leaves—my dad drives our family to an arboretum,he brings a field guide and we’re all leaf-picking,all saying gingko, chestnut, walnut, buckeye.Mama writes down American names,learns too that rootbeer-scented sassafras bearthree kinds of leaves: mittens, gloves, and palms. The night before my book’s due, he stays up.He helps sort leaf after leaf, irons thembetween waxpaper pages he’s cut.By the circular light …
Karen Tei Yamashita - Part 2
March 21, 2010 • Kandice Chuh
Part 1 >>Continuation of The Asian American Literary Review’s interview with Karen Tei Yamashita…Kandice Chuh (KC): You write, “I’ve anticipated the end of the story without imparting the beginning. Knowing the story’s end does not necessarily imply completion of knowledge, for if many endings are possible, so also are many beginnings. History may proceed sequentially or, as they say, must proceed sequentially, but stories may turn and turn again—the knowing end kissing the innocent beginning, the innocent end kissing the knowing …
Karen Tei Yamashita - Part 1
March 14, 2010 • Kandice Chuh
I flew out to California on 12 November 2009 to interview Karen Tei Yamashita on the eve of the publication of I Hotel, her newest work. We began the day in conversation over lunch, moved to a more formal interview conducted at her home, and ended with dinner. What appears here is an edited version of our conversations, constructed from a recording and my notes, and refined thereafter by both of us. What this text fails to capture is the …
Compartment Comportment - Part 3
Feb. 21, 2010 • Marie Mutsuki Mockett
>> Part 2It was not for lifestyle reasons that we weren’t married. Even today, I’m unsure as to what the holdup really was all about, though I know it has something to do with the nemesis of all modern and sophisticated women who outwardly abhor Kate Hudson’s latest bridal film while hoping to cement a relationship as “committed.” Why did I never issue an ultimatum? He was beautiful, smart and kind and I loved him and he gave me plenty …