Awards
Winner of the 2002 American Book Award
Synopses & Reviews
His memory -- his mind, really -- is blocking and altering his recollection of what transpired in the early forties in Chongqing. What he remembers about his mother is especially jagged and conflicting. Such repression is a theme Alex Kuo pursues in many of his stories. Likewise censorship and state terrorism, ideology and dissidence.
Review
"The essence of what short stories should be: simple and at the same time profound and disturbing. It is his genius to bring to light how the basic horror of repression, censorship, and state terrorism is the same all over the world, on any side." Luisa Valenzuela
Review
"His stories burst with hard-edged insights that take my breath away. I read them with surprise and admiration." P.K. Leung
About the Author
Alex Kuo was born in Boston but raised in wartime Chongqing. He has spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, where he once fought forest fires for a living.
Since 1988 he has taught and traveled extensively in China, as a Senior Fulbright Fellow, Lingnan Fellow, and lecturer. His most recent books are Chinese Opera, a novel published by Asia 2000, and a collection of poems, This Fierce Geography.
Alex Kuo is a major writer of trans-Pacific literature. His work bridges oceans, cultures and generations. Lipstick and Other Stories won the American Book Award, 2002 a first for a Hong Kong author. Also, a first for a book not published in the United States.