Customer Reviews

Monsoon History: Selected Poems (Skoob Pacifica Series)

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This is a very fine collection of poems by Shirley Lim, who is currently teaching at the University of Hong Kong.

She was born in Malaysia to Chinese parents, and has lived in both Asia and America. This blend of cultures and languages has given her a unique understanding of the nature of translation, of roots, of travel, and of culture. These are themes she addresses in her poetry.

Her skill with words is considerable, and no two poems resemble each other. There are many voices, many situations. There is humor, horror, urban paranoia, love, and struggle. I treasure this volume as much for its skillful craft as for its tender stories of Asian women.

Her prose afterword, entitled Tongue and Root, an essay on the subject of translation and the English language, is quite wonderful. Excellent for students of linguistics and translation, or of modern Asian history, but I would think anyone interested in the problems of the Third Culture phenomena would find a lot to like in this book.

An essential part of any library of Asian Women's Studies.