The Eighth Day

Kim Ronyoung (Author)

Clay Walls

1, A landmark modern classic about the Korean American immigrant experience and the dawn of Los Angeles's Koreatown A Penguin Classic Kim Ronyoung (Gloria Hahn, 1926-1987) tells the story of Haesu and Chun, immigrants who fled Japanese-occupied Korea for Los Angeles in the decade prior to World War II, and their American-born children. First published in 1986, Clay Walls offers a portrait of what being Korean in California meant in the first half of the twentieth century and how these immigrants' nationalist spirit helped them withstand racism and poverty. Kim explores the tensions within a family of immigrants and new Americans and brings to the forefront the themes of Korean immigration, U.S. racism, generational trauma, and the early decades of Los Angeles's Koreatown from a Korean American woman's point of view. Through three sections representing the perspectives of mother, father, and daughter, what resonates the most is the voice of a woman and her self-determination, through national identity, marriage, and motherhood.

Arielle Zibrak (Editor)

Twelve Stories by American Women

3,A collection of twelve essential short stories by iconic American women writers that introduces a more diverse canon and emphasizes non-white and queer writers to better represent the experiences of all American women and to understand the importance of the short story for women A Penguin Classic One of The Millions' Winter Most Anticipated. "Zibrak curates a dozen short stories by women writers who have long been left out of American literary canon--most of them women of color--from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper to Zitkala-Sa." - The Millions When Four Stories by American Women was first published by Penguin Classics in 1990, it understandably reflected the second-wave feminist interpretations of that time--a period marked by an impressive recovery of what were then considered to be minor American writers. Since then, the four white women writers included in the volume--Rebecca Harding Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Edith Wharton--have become canonical figures, and scholars have grown to see their work as only a small part of the rich tapestry of American women's lives, values, and political beliefs in the fertile period of late nineteenth century and ...

Edith Hall (Author)

Epic of the Earth: Reading Homer's Iliad in the Fight for a Dying World

4,An urgent study of Homer's Iliad, exposing the beginnings of the ecological disaster we now face and facilitating our understanding of its history "Exhilarating."--Emma Greensmith, Times Literary Supplement The roots of today's environmental catastrophe run deep into humanity's past. Through this unprecedented reading of Homer's Iliad, the award-winning classicist Edith Hall examines how this foundational text both documents the environmental practices of the ancient Greeks and betrays an awareness of the dangers posed by the destruction of the natural landscape. Underlying Homer's account of brutal military operations, alliances, and cataclysmic struggle is a palpable understanding that the direction in which humanity was headed could create a world that was uninhabitable. Hall provides unparalleled insight into the ancient origins of climate change and argues that the Iliad exposes the deepest contradictions behind the environmental problems we have created. Indeed, it is possible that some of the violence done to the environment throughout history has been authorized, if not exacerbated, by the celebration of the exploitation of nature in Homer's poem. Drawing compelling ...