Girl in Translation [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Jean Kwok (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 3, 2011

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life-like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition-Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but also herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A resolute yet naïve Chinese girl confronts poverty and culture shock with equal zeal when she and her mother immigrate to Brooklyn in Kwok's affecting coming-of-age debut. Ah-Kim Chang, or Kimberly as she is known in the U.S., had been a promising student in Hong Kong when her father died. Now she and her mother are indebted to Kimberly's Aunt Paula, who funded their trip from Hong Kong, so they dutifully work for her in a Chinatown clothing factory where they earn barely enough to keep them alive. Despite this, and living in a condemned apartment that is without heat and full of roaches, Kimberly excels at school, perfects her English, and is eventually admitted to an elite, private high school. An obvious outsider, without money for new clothes or undergarments, she deals with added social pressures, only to be comforted by an understanding best friend, Annette, who lends her makeup and hands out American advice. A love interest at the factory leads to a surprising plot line, but it is the portrayal of Kimberly's relationship with her mother that makes this more than just another immigrant story. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"At age 5, Kwok moved with her family from Hong Kong to a New York City slum. . . . She has spun some of her experiences into this involving debut. . . . Kwok drops you right inside Kimberly's head, adding Chinese idioms to crisp dialogue. And the book's lesson-that every choice comes at the expense of something else- hits home in any language."
-People (3 1/2 stars)

"Writing in first-person from Kim's point of view, Kwok cleverly employs phonetic spellings to illustrate her protagonist's growing understanding of English and wide-eyed view of American teen culture. The author draws upon her own experience as a child laborer in New York, which adds a poignant layer to Girl in Translation."
-USA Today

"Though the plot may sound mundane - a Chinese girl and her mother immigrate to this country and succeed despite formidable odds - this coming-of-age tale is anything but. Whether Ah-Kim (or Kimberly, as she's called) is doing piecework on the factory floor with her mother, or suffering through a cold New York winter in a condemned, roach-infested apartment, or getting that acceptance letter from Yale, her story seems fresh and new."
-Entertainment Weekly

"The astonishing - and semi-autobiographical - tale of a girl from Hong Kong who, at age eleven, shoulders the weight of her mother's American dream all the way from Chinatown sweatshop to the Ivy League."
-Vogue

"Part fairy tale, part autobiography... what puts this debut novel toward the top of the pile is its buoyant voice and its slightly subversive ending that suggests "happily ever after" may have more to do with love of self and of family than with any old Prince Charming."
-O, The Oprah Magazine

"Dazzling fiction debut."
-Marie Claire

"In Kimberly Chang, Jean Kwok has created a gentle and unassuming character. But Kimberly is also very clever, and as she struggles to escape the brutal trap of poverty she proves indomitable. With her keen intelligence and her reservoir of compassion, she's irresistibly admirable, as is the whole of this gripping, luminous novel."
-Joanna Scott, author of Follow Me

"I love how this book allowed me to see my own country, with all its cruelty and kindness, from a perspective so different from my own. I love how it invited me into the heart and mind of Kimberly Chang, whose hard choices will resonate with anyone who has sacrificed for a dream. Powerful storytelling kept me turning the pages quickly, but Kimberly's voice-so smart and clear-will stay with me for a long time."
-Laura Moriarty, author of While I'm Falling

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade; Reprint edition (May 3, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594485151
• ASIN: B005IUH24O
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (229 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jean Kwok immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood. She won early admission to Harvard, where she worked as many as four jobs at a time, and graduated with honors in English and American literature, before going on to earn an MFA in fiction at Columbia.

Her debut novel Girl in Translation (Riverhead, 2010) became a New York Times bestseller. It has been published in 15 countries and chosen as the winner of an American Library Association Alex Award, a John Gardner Fiction Book Award finalist, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick, an Orange New Writers title, an Indie Next Pick, a Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award nominee and the winner of Best Cultural Book in Book Bloggers Appreciation Week 2010. It was featured in The New York Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others. The novel was a Blue Ribbon Pick for numerous book clubs, including Book of the Month, Doubleday and Literary Guild. Jean lives in the Netherlands with her husband and two sons.

Learn more about Jean here:
www.jeankwok.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Jean-Kwok/213583280524

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

151 of 158 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The immigrant experience through young Chinese eyes - a story about hope, persistence, and dedication April 18, 2010

By AlexJouJou TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Girl in Translation is a coming of age story that intertwines what it means to be an immigrant with the values of family, a sense of duty, and hope for the future. Kimberly and her mother find themselves in New York looking for a better future than the life they'd known in Hong Kong. They are, unfortunately, at the mercy of Kimberly's aunt and uncle as they are quite indebted to them for arranging green cards and for taking care of medical bills for Kimberly's mom (who has had TB) as well as paying for their accommodations to New York.

When the story starts Kimberly is a middle school age girl who speaks and reads some English but not enough to create any real level of understanding of her surroundings. Her mother speaks almost no English. They've just arrived and their mother's sister (herself with a story that I won't spoil) has arranged an apartment and a job. The apartment is a heat-less, roach and rodent infested slum tenancy, and the job working at a sweatshop making pennies for long hours. The Chinese culture is front and center here and it is interesting to understand why Kimberly and her mom would agree to these conditions. The sense of duty, of obligation, runs strong - and they have very little other options and no choices. It certainly brought me back to stories my grandparents talked about as immigrants themselves and how they arrived in America and the struggles they faced. I think many of us have lost this sense of our past, of the struggles of our ancestors and how it really was when you arrived at Ellis Island (or how it could be)

As time passes they manage by making noises to frighten the various other non human tenants of their apartment and tape garbage bags to the broken window panes.... Various people enter their life but they keep very much to themselves, afraid of what others would think if they knew the true situation. At first Kimberly struggles in school with her limited English skills but she soon picks things up and shows herself to be the star student she was back in Hong Kong for science and math.

Meanwhile both she and her mom work in the sweatshop for the pittance they get paid. Their life is undeniably hard and there is a marked contrast between the way things are for them and what Kimberly sees in school. The scenes in the sweatshop are particularly disturbing and it is unsettling to say the least to know that this type of thing exists not only in the USA but all over the world.

As high school approaches Kimberly receives a scholarship to an exclusive private school. All is not perfect though as there is such a contrast between her impoverished life and the immaculate and sprawling landscaped school grounds and beautiful buildings. It is really the first time Kimberly feels that she can escape the life she's been living and sets the stage for the choices she will make for the future.

As Kimberly tries to balance the demands of a top notch private school with her work both at the school and at her aunt and uncles sweatshop one of the boys there becomes Kimberly's friend, later destined to be something else. To see how a young boy can grow up in that environment and struggle and work towards a better future is heartwarming.

Just when you think you know what will happen the ending has a huge twist. I won't spoil it other than to say I almost cried.

I adored this book. It was comfortable and, in spite of the tragic content in places, the author did a wonderful job of making you feel it without spending your reading time in abject misery. The characters are extremely rich and vibrant and interesting. The world introduced feels as foreign as China to me and it is hard, as I've noted, to reconcile the fact that this type of thing happens all the time within the America I grew up in.

I also really enjoyed the Chinese sayings interspersed throughout the book. Instead of saying you are ungrateful you say "your heart has no roots". Although Kimberly struggled with learning this "Chinese" (what was being said indirectly or in a different way) I really enjoyed it. It is a part of the culture that is so different than the direct American way.

Girl in Translation flows smoothly and Kimberly ages as you press on, waiting to see what will happen, where she will end up, and if she can escape her situation and have a bright future. As bright as she is was my hope for her. An enlightening story with an interesting cast. Highly recommended! Read more ›

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars unsure at first.. June 5, 2010

By sun2008

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I had some ambivalence about this book at first, and mostly read it out of curiosity because it received such great reviews. The ambivalence was due to similarities between my own life and the character's - I am Asian, I immigrated to the US when I was thirteen, my previously well educated and professional parents became rough laborers, we were poor, I strugged with language and assimilation, and went on to two Ivy Leagues. So I thought: what can this book possibly tell me? Should there be such books to further the stereotype of the Chinese immigrant, who came to the U.S. poverty stricken and struggle to become doctors and lawyers? I chose to read it for two reasons: curiosity, and the fact that the author gave up science to become a writer and obtain and MFA - not very Chinese. I realized she must have had guts to risk the more certain path of a structured profession, for a career in writing. So I gave it a go. In the end, I do have to admit that I am probably a biased reader. Having had first hand experiences quite similar to the character's, there were times when I broke down while reading the book. It uncovered a lot of wounds and shame that I thought had gone away. I relived many painful moments which had been forgotten or buried away, and reminded me of who I was. Again, I realize this comes from a very specific perspective, but for having reacquainted me with an old sad self, I give it five stars.

78 of 91 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but not as deep as it could've been July 21, 2010

By mulanrouge VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I enjoyed the story and I did finish it with some feeling of attachment to the main character.

Having said that, I think the author treated the adolescent immigrant experience a bit too superficially for the story to have been truly satisfying. I compare the story to Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, another 1st person autobiographical but fictional account of a teenager trying to fit into a "foreign" culture, and Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone, and wish that Girl in Translation could've read as deeply as those two books. I also write this with personal knowledge of the Chinese immigrant experience - my mother too worked in a garment factory and we lived in a roach-infested apartment, had to rely on doing well in school to get out of poverty, etc. - but I didn't feel that this story captured the deeper issues that come along with growing up in such an environment. The book focused too much on the poverty (way too many descriptions of the cold apartment and roaches and rats) and Kimberly's academic performance. When I was growing up I struggled alot with identity issues (cultural; familial (my role in the family since as a child I was given adult responsibility)), idealism (the painfully disappointing realization that my life was different from that of my American friends), a sense of not belonging anywhere (feeling neither Chinese nor American), resentment against my parents, the very people who were sacrificing for me (for being expected to be the adult, for being pushed to excel at school without emotional support) and guilt (for wanting freedom, hating my life, not respecting my parents (because I started to look down on them for needing me), wanting to be American), etc.... The issues that immigrant children and teens face are ENORMOUS and complex and the book didn't really touch on these themes.

So, without the necessary depth, this story became, to me anyway, another story of an Asian American "whiz kid" - the kid who comes to the US with little or no English and money and then rises to the top academically and professionally. Read more ›

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Something is lost in "Translation" June 4, 2010

By NyiNya TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Sometimes you pick up a book and think, "Boy, I'm gonna love this." "Girl in Translation" promised to give that rare glimpse into the world of Hong Kong immigrants. What is more fascinating than seeing how real people live...not the usual Danielle Steele fare about over-sexed billionaire superlovers and their exotic mistresses, but a chance to be an unseen guest at the dinner table, to get an inside look at a culture that is worlds away from ours. Unfortunately, "Lost in Translation" doesn't deliver. The characters are sketchy at best. The rich culture of the Chinese community emerges only superficially. This could have been a thought-provoking, compelling journey into a fascinating world. Instead, the first 3/4 of the book are more like an Afterschool Special.

Kimberly, who is 12 years old when we meet her, and her widowed mother are brought to NYC from Hong Kong by the mother's well-to-do older sister. Auntie's fortune was secured by marrying a suitor rejected by Kimberly's mom, who chose to wed an impoverished musician instead.

When Kim's father dies, the Aunt sends for them, promising a good life and offering her sister a job tutoring the Aunt's son in Chinese. Turns out, Auntie is jealous, mean-spirited and parsimonious. Rather than the tutoring position, she places the mother in the garment district sweatshop owned by her husband.

This is a factory that would make Charles Dickens cringe. Amid choking air full of swirling dust and fabric particles, with demonic presses belching out boiling steam into the miasma, and the roar of sewing machines endlessly churning out cheap clothing, the workers struggle to keep up with quotas and eke a living doing piecework.... Piecework, by the way, is a hellacious but lucrative (and illegal) practice beloved of the Free Market System. Workers (usually undocumented and always unskilled) are paid not by the hour, but by "the piece" -- usually pennies per piece and just a fraction of the most minimum of lawful wages.

The housing Auntie provides is worse than the factory: filthy, unheated and derelict. In this condemned building, in the heart of the Brooklyn ghetto, Kim and Ma, live as best they can, with no glass in the windows, hot and cold running cockroaches, and a few broken bits of furniture. To keep warm, Kim and her "Ma" wrap themselves in pieces cut from a scavenged roll of lime green plush intended for stuffed animals. No matter how much they scrimp, how hard they work, there is no chance they'll ever get ahead. Auntie, who collects the rent and may indeed own the rat trap (despite claiming it is the property of an unseen Mr. Norman), charges them top dollar for the apartment. Auntie also insists that, in addition to the inflated rent, they repay her the costs of their transportation from Hong Kong. She also dings them for a "deposit" on the apartment (!) and the broken odds and sods of furniture that she obviously picked up off the stree. And naturally, being a savvy business woman, she piles a tidy
"interest" on top. To repay this debt will take years and keeps Kim and her Ma impoverished, hungry, cold and under Auntie's thumb.

This would seem bleak and hopeless, except for one saving grace: Kim is a brilliant student. After a little initial difficulty while learning the language, she proves to be a genius in science and math, achieving perfect test scores. She is given a scholarship to a high-tone prep school and eventually a full scholarship to Yale because of her (rather unbelievable) level of genius. This gal is so bright, she works all night in the factory helping her mom, never cracks a book, and gets perfect scores on every test she takes including the SATs. It kind of stretches the imagination, because Kim's behaviour, quite frankly, just isn't that bright for the most part.

We get to share Kim's high school romances, which are about as interesting as you might imagine. We get a little more unbelievability thrown in (probably to amp up the book's teen appeal: the cutest, most popular boy in school falls for Kim. He's rich, artistic, kind and every girls dream date. But Kim is drawn to Matt, a cocky young Chinese man who works along side her at the factory. Matt, by the way, is the handsomest, most popular boy in the factory. AHA, we have conflict. The story takes couple of major twists that a discerning reader can just barely see coming.

Anyway, I think you see what I mean about "Afterschool Special" here. What we lack is any insight into how Kim's mother put food on the table, how they actually lived from day to day, what it was like shopping without knowing the language, what they ate, how the other workers survived. We learn more about the middle class white students who are Kim's friends -- but I already knew about them. I would have loved more about the Chinese immigrant experience beyond the repetitions of conditions in the factory and Kim's home. All we get of this fascinating world is the same basic description of the apartment and the factory, chapter after chapter. There are so many other places Kwok could have taken us, it's disappointing to be brought back to the same ground over the same ground over and over again.

The end of the book serves as an epilogue; we jump forward 12 years after Kim's acceptance at Yale. To say more would be a spoiler.

If you don't need a lot of meat on a story, you may enjoy this book more than I did. Most reviewers certainly seem all agog over it. I found "A Girl in Translation" too repetitious and superficial. Anyone could have written this after a day's library or internet research. Jean Kwok doesn't give us a three-dimensional look at the lives her characters live, she doesn't crate believable characters, and we get a very shallow portrait of emigrant life. The book doesn't deliver on its promise and doesn't rise about "young adult" level. Too bad, because this could have been an unforgettable journey into a largely unknown (at least to us in the West)world. Read more ›