恭喜发财 (Gong hei fat choy)!
新年快乐 (Xīn nián kuài lè)!
Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!
새해복많이받으세요 (Saehae bok manhi badeuseyo)!
Manigong Bagong Taon!
Lunar New Year Storytime and Craft Activity
Last weekend we hosted our inaugural Lunar New Year Storytime and Craft activity for kids aged 4-11. We had a full house and were delighted to see so many of you join us to learn more about the origins of the Chinese Zodiac and have a go at making your own Year of the Rabbit themed decorations. We were so impressed by your arts and crafts skills, and we look forward to seeing you again at our next activity. Keep an eye on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts for updates about future events 😉
Lunar New Year Display
Join us in celebrating the Year of the Rabbit at Palmers Green Library by borrowing a book by an East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) author from our Lunar New Year Display located on the First Floor.
We have gathered books from across genres (from children’s picture books and teen fiction to horror and crime), written by authors from throughout the ESEA and the diaspora – all for your reading pleasure!
Special mention goes to these two uplifting and gorgeously illustrated picture books written by Joanna Ho and illustrated by Dung Ho. They are new in and available for loan!
We also have some books in Chinese (traditional and simplified) on display. This isn’t our full collection, so if you want to see more, head to the Community Languages bookcase in the Adult Non-Fiction section and the Dual Language section in the Children’s Library.
Author Spotlights
Last but certainly not least, we have handpicked the following ESEA Authors to spotlight. Here’s a quick look at these five literary talents, along with some original portraits by one of our staff and links to the authors’ work.
EILEEN CHANG
“I want you to know there’s someone in this world who’s yours always. Please know that, forever and wherever. Yours, always.” (Half a Lifelong Romance)
EILEEN CHANG aka Chang Ai-ling or Zhang Ailing (September 30, 1920 – September 8, 1995) was a Chinese-born American essayist, novelist, and screenwriter.
She is lauded for providing an alternate wartime narrative, that sought not to advocate heroism or inspire patriotism, but to depict the everyday life of ordinary men and women. With a subtle and observant prose, Chang wrote tales of ambition, deception and love amongst the social upheaval of 1940s Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Chang’s seductive and elegant period romances were a natural fit for the big screen. Taiwanese director, Ang Lee’s adaptation of her 1979 novella Lust, Caution won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2007.
For fans of Amy Tan, Francoise Sagan, and Evelyn Waugh.
TASH AW
“Man is a restless creature, nomadic at heart.” (Map of the Invisible World)
TASH AW is the author of the 2005 Whitbread First Novel award-winning The Harmony Silk Factory.
Born in Taiwan to Malaysian parents, Aw grew up in Kuala Lumpur speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay, and English. He moved to the UK as a teenager to study law at Cambridge and, later, creative writing at the University of East Anglia. This dynamic cultural and educational upbringing afforded him a multiplicity of perspectives, which he uses to write with compassion and respect about the socially disenfranchised.
After a stellar debut, Aw went on to release Map of the Invisible World about two abandoned brothers adopted by different families in Malaysia and Indonesia and the multinarrative Five Star Billionaire about Malaysian Chinese expats seeking financial success in Shanghai. His latest novel, We, the Survivors (2019), is a deftly written murderer’s confession that highlights the social and environmental costs of economic progress, cemented his place as one of Southeast Asia’s most successful and influential literary voices.
For fans of Toni Morrison, Albert Camus, and Yan Lianke.
HAN KANG
“The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure.” (The Vegetarian)
HAN KANG is a novelist, poet, and musician from South Korea. Kang’s critically acclaimed, Human Acts, a novel about the state oppression and police brutality surrounding the Gwangju student uprising of 1980, saw her blacklisted by the Park Geun-hye administration.
She won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction in 2016 for The Vegetarian, a harrowing novel about a woman’s descent into mental illness, from the viewpoint of her family members. Her 2017 autobiographical novel The White Book, set in post-World War II Poland, centres on the loss of her older sister, a baby who died just two hours after her birth.
Kang’s writing is concise and cutting, and her stories of inherited grief, family collapse, and violence (self-inflicted and state-ordered) are a disquieting exploration of the human experience.
For fans of Cho Nam Joo and Elena Ferrante.
VIET THANH NGUYEN
“Nothing […] is ever so expensive as what is offered for free.” (The Sympathizer)
Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and a regular contributor, op-ed columnist for The New York Times.
His debut novel, The Sympathizer, about a North Vietnamese mole’s time in the South Vietnamese army and his subsequent events in American exile, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His second novel, The Committed (2019) continues the story of The Sympathizer.
The Refugees is a collection of short stories about family, identity and hope, including a young author who is visited by the ghost of her brother who died protecting her on the arduous voyage from Vietnam to the States, and a gambling addict whose decision to contact his organ donor finds him caught up in a counterfeit luxury item business.
Nguyen is a compassionate and powerful voice in fiction, journalism and academia, whose work both entertains and empowers.
For fans of Leila Lalami, Ralph Ellison and Nikesh Shukla.
RUTH OZEKI
“Life is fleeting. Don’t waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now! And now! And now!” (A Tale for the Time Being)
Ruth Ozeki is a Japanese-American Booker-shortlisted author and Zen Buddhist Priest.
Vibrant and philosophical, Ozeki’s work explores a range of topics and settings with ease and vigour: from the meat industry and global warming to particle physics and Jean-Sartre, and even French maid cafes in Tokyo.
She is especially gifted at portraying young characters as they confront death and loss, as the suicidal Nao in A Tale for the Time Being and as Benny Oh, mourning the sudden death of his father in the winner of the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction, The Book of Form and Emptiness.
Ozeki writes with a passion and curiosity that is both inspiring and grounding.
For fans of Min Jee Lee, Alice Sebold and Matt Haig.
If you’d like to see these portraits and check out the rest of our collection in person, then head on over to Palmers Green Library. The display will only be up for a couple more weeks so drop by ASAP and get borrowing!
Happy Lunar New Year from all of us at Palmers Green Library!
We look forward to your next visit!
R.A.
ENFIELD LIBRARIES 