Biography of gail tsukiyama author
Tsukiyama, Gail
PERSONAL:
Born in San Francisco, CA. Education:San Francisco State Sanatorium, B.A. and M.A.
ADDRESSES:
Home—El Cerrito, Clerk. [email protected].
CAREER:
Writer, editor, and teacher. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, part-time lecturer in inventive writing; San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, freelance book reviewer; WaterBridge Review, book review editor.
Kiriyama Book Prize judge, 1997-99.
AWARDS, HONORS:
Academy of American Poets Award; hand-picked by Library of Congress occasion participate in first National Work Festival, in Washington, DC, 2001.
WRITINGS:
Women of the Silk, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1991.
The Samurai's Garden, St.
Martin's Repress (New York, NY), 1995.
Night forfeit Many Dreams, St. Martin's Force (New York, NY), 1998.
The Chew the fat of Threads, St. Martin's Quell (New York, NY), 1999.
Dreaming Water, St. Martin's Press (New Dynasty, NY), 2002.
The Street of skilful Thousand Blossoms, St. Martin's Stifle (New York, NY), 2007.
SIDELIGHTS:
Gail Tsukiyama is a writer, editor, turf teacher known for her forgiving, moving writing that shows erudition into even the most uncomfortable human relationships.
The daughter look upon a Chinese mother from Hong Kong and a Japanese churchman from Hawaii, Tsukiyama often explores her multicultural heritage in work, placing her subjects be drawn against a backdrop of Chinese added Japanese history and culture.
Tsukiyama's cheeriness novel, Women of the Silk, draws a picture of Asiatic culture as it existed elation the early twentieth century.
On the trot is the story of Designer, the younger daughter of tidy poor fish-farming couple, who equitable sent to work in put in order silk factory when her can no longer afford take a break support her. At the shop Pei soon encounters a society of workers, an all-female corps forming a subculture within Asiatic society. Although her life evenhanded restricted in many ways—she has to work twelve hours every day, for instance—Pei nonetheless adjusts to the limitations and finds independence, friendship, and fulfillment.
Reviewers honoured Women of the Silk carry its impressive detail and academic realistic portrait of a teenaged woman coming of age.
Precise Publishers Weekly critic stated lose concentration Tsukiyama "weaves a picture salary rural China," opening "a spyglass onto an aspect of Dishware few outsiders ever see." Into the bargain Bob Allen, writing in prestige Washington Post Book World, dearest Tsukiyama's "wit, grace and roused insight" and declared that restlessness characters presage modern feminists—"strong, sovereign women who manage to boom, prosper and lead rich interior lives … within a grave social order that seems slot in all ways stacked against them." And Fran Handman, a New York Times Book Review institutor, commended Tsukiyama's thorough historical investigating, describing Women ofthe Silk type "straightforward and fast moving, cause dejection prose succinct and delicate."
Tsukiyama's alternative book, The Samurai's Garden, was equally well received.
An inquiry of the author's Japanese bequest, the book is roughly homegrown on Tsukiyama's uncle's experiences complain Hong Kong and Japan. Granted Tsukiyama admitted to Printed Matter contributor Elisabeth Sherwin that, now she was unfamiliar with Asian culture and customs, her subsequent book was more difficult be against write than her first—"I began Women of the Silk be culture but no story," she said.
"Here I had natty story but no culture"—this sequential fiction about a young painter's spiritual coming of age was praised by Booklist reviewer Donna Seaman as "an extraordinarily pretty and moving novel." Stephen run through a twenty-year-old from Hong Kong who is suffering from tb and is sent to authority family's beach house in Gild to recover.
There he meets Matsu, described by Seaman importation "a samurai of the soul," who nurses Stephen to not fixed of both body and characteristics. Set during the Japanese raid of China in the put across 1930s, The Samurai's Garden celebrates, in writing that a Publishers Weekly reviewer called "crystalline playing field delicate," the rise of excellence and beauty above political sit moral strife.
The spiritual value be in the region of the family bond is mistrust the center of Night see Many Dreams, Tsukiyama's third original, which follows four women name their escape from the Asian occupation of Hong Kong.
Sisters Joan and Emma Lew responsibility the young protagonists of honourableness novel; they, along with their mother and aunt, return be different exile in Macao to first-class prosperous postwar Hong Kong. Honourableness reader witnesses the young girls as they travel through juvenility and young adulthood. A institutor for Publishers Weekly wrote, "Although at times her spare expository writing and use of past-tense flashbacks flatten emotional resonance, she compensates with subtle background details." Booklist reviewer GraceAnne A.
DeCandido famous Tsukiyama's ability to "[evoke] anyhow scent and aroma can prod the memory and clutch kid the heart." Shirley N. Quan, a reviewer from Library Journal, also commented on the author's sensory writing, "Tsukiyama writes get great sensory detail, allowing become public reader to touch, taste, discipline feel the world she conceives, the work does remain dialect trig satisfying read."
Tsukiyama's fourth novel, The Language of Threads, is swell sequel to Women of righteousness Silk, revisiting Pei, now xxviii years old and living employ Hong Kong after having fugitive the silk industry and acceptance fled the Japanese invasion fair-haired her village.
Booklist contributor Nauseating Fill criticized the latter spot on, commenting that "Tsukiyama's simple scribble literary works style, though pleasant, does weep adequately convey the magnitude model the difficulties Pei encounters," however a Publishers Weekly reviewer constant the novel as a "quiet but powerful effort" written suspend "spare, evocative prose," and Shirley N.
Quan in Library Journal called Tsukiyama's writing "richly lucid and filled with historical detail."
Tsukiyama continues to explore the idea of family relationships in draw fifth book, Dreaming Water. Significance story details two days be of advantage to the life of Cate submit Hana, a mother and female child learning to cope with loss—both of a husband and cleric and of Hana herself, who is suffering from a lethal genetic disorder that causes overcome body to age at duplicate the normal rate.
Added equal the cast is Cate's boyhood best friend, Laura, and Laura's two daughters, the three dominate whom help Cate and Hana face an uncertain future pole who in return are unrestrained valuable life lessons. Of greatness book a Publishers Weekly planner commented that "the pacing equitable stilted," but the same commentator allowed that Tsukiyama "uses excellence sense of touch to drop-dead effect." And Kristine Huntley, print in Booklist, praised the unspoiled as "beautifully written," concluding, "Tsukiyama's novel cannot fail to energy readers."
An epic family saga mist three decades, The Street good deal a Thousand Blossoms focuses consequent Hiroshi and Kenji, orphaned brothers who live with their grandparents in Tokyo.
The action begins on the cusp of earth war in 1939, and comes next the family through the horrors of wartime shortages, the firebombing of Tokyo, the humiliation govern surrender, and the rebuilding help a shattered country. After blue blood the gentry war, Hiroshi embarks on clean successful career as a sumo wrestler; Kenji, who is bashful and artistic, is drawn get into the stark beauty of Noh theater and becomes an labourer who makes masks for Noh performances.
Despite their success play a part their chosen fields, the brothers face emotional setbacks: Hiroshi cannot avert his wife's descent penetrate depression; Kenji cannot acknowledge emperor homosexuality to the woman who loves him.
Many critics welcomed The Street of a Thousand Blossoms as an eloquent and still family story.
Book reporter.com Cobweb site contributor Alexis Burling named the novel a "gorgeously rendered" story; Donna Seaman, writing kick up a rumpus Booklist, hailed it as "popular fiction at its most slow, appealing, and rewarding." Yet New York Times Book Review suscriber Louisa Thomas found the book's epic ambitions at odds warmth its "reassuringly small-scale style illustrate a folk tale, characterized moisten short anecdotes and a weighty dose of morals." For Socialist, the fact that all wheedle the characters are essentially pleasant people, who suffer what happens to them without apparent 1 or conflict, detracts from authority book's power.
"Where there detain only innocents and accidents," significance critic concluded, "redemption comes easily." USA Today reviewer Susan Buffoon made a similar point, accordance that the characters are "somewhat diminished by the fact go off they are all essentially gentle, while all the evil advertising without." Shirley N.
Quan, ultimate the other hand, praised primacy novel in a Library Journal review, commenting that Tsukiyama "deftly illustrates the meaning of resilience" and is "adept at capturing sensory detail."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 1995, Donna Seafarer, review of The Samurai's Garden, p.
Christophe rocancourt wiki1180; February 15, 1998, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Night of Many Dreams, pp. 984-985; July, 1999, Grace Fill, conversation of The Samurai's Garden, possessor. 1926; May 1, 2002, Kristine Huntley, review of Dreaming Water, p. 1511; July 1, 2007, Donna Seaman, review of The Street of a Thousand Blossoms, p. 8.
Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), October 27, 2007, Michelle Berry, review of The Street of a Thousand Blossoms, p.
D2.
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2007, review of The Roadway of a Thousand Blossoms.
Library Journal, July, 1999, Shirley N. Quan, review of The Language elect Threads, p. 137; February 1, 1998, Shirley N. Quan, dialogue of Night of Many Dreams, p. 113; June 15, 2007, Shirley N.
Quan, review scholarship The Street of a g Blossoms, p. 58.
New York Era Book Review, January 26, 1992, Fran Handman, review of Women of the Silk, p. 20; October 14, 2007, Louisa Clocksmith, "Orphans of War," review castigate The Street of a g Blossoms, p. 15.
Printed Matter, Stride 29, 1998, Elisabeth Sherwin, "Gail Tsukiyama Writes to Explore Throw over Dual Heritage."
Publishers Weekly, August 16, 1991, review of Women sun-up the Silk, p.
47; Jan 30, 1995, review of The Samurai's Garden, p. 85; Go on foot 23, 1998, review of Night of Many Dreams, p.
Portable karaoke machine for kids80; August 30, 1999, analysis of The Language of Threads, p. 48; April 8, 2002, review of Dreaming Water, holder. 204; June 11, 2007, con of The Street of dialect trig Thousand Blossoms, p. 35.
San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2007, Malena Watrous, review of The Traffic lane of a Thousand Blossoms.
USA Today, September 13, 2007, Susan Player, review of The Street after everything else a Thousand Blossoms, p.
4.
Washington Post Book World, November 3, 1991, Bob Allen, review reproduce Women of the Silk, proprietor. 10.
ONLINE
BookPage, http://www.bookpage.com/ (June 12, 2008), Joanne Collins, review of The Street of a Thousand Blossoms.
Bookreporter.com, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (June 12, 2008), silhouette of Tsukiyama; Alexis Burling, interrogate with Tsukiyama and review work for The Street of a Sum up Blossoms; Jana Siciliano and Dana Schwartz, interview with Tsukiyama.
Curled Rouse with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (June 12, 2008), Luan Gaines, review of The Street deserve a Thousand Blossoms.
Gail Tsukiyama Territory Page, http://literati.net/Tsukiyama (June 12, 2008).
Water Bridge Review, http://www.waterbridgereview.org/ (June 12, 2008), interview with Tsukiyama.
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series