Author: Hisaye Yamamoto
Introduction by: King-Kok Cheung
Subject: Literature/Asian American Studies /Women's Studies
Paperback ISBN 0-8135-2607-8
Pages: 150 pp.
Description: A classic collection of short stories of Japanese American life returns to print.
Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories brings together fifteen stories that span Hisaye Yamamoto's forty-year career. It was her first book to be published in the United States. Yamamoto's themes include the cultural conflicts between the first generation, the Issei, and their children, the Nisei; coping with prejudice; and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.
"These remarkable stories are written with the proportion and craft of the masters-there are hints of Chekhov, Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield, and Grace Paley. . . . Each of the fifteen short stories, written with the economy of haiku, is a treasure."-Booklist
"The writing of history and the telling of stories are in our time very different. But these stories about the daily lives of Japanese American women in and out of the World War II internment camps of the United States are history and herstory. The women are gutsy or fragile-that is, like any of us would be caught in exile while at home. The stories are beautifully written so we feel them even more deeply."-Grace Paley
"You can imagine my delight to learn that a collection of her work is now finally seeing the light of day. How good that feels. At last more people will be touched by the grace that flows through Hisaye Yamamoto's pen. The world will be a better place because of it." -Joy Kogawa
Hisaye Yamamoto was born in 1921 in Redondo Beach, California. She received the 1986 American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her work has been published internationally in numerous publications and widely anthologized. Seventeen Syllables received the 1988 Award for Literature from the Association for Asian American Studies. Two of the stories in this book were the basis of the 1991 American Playhouse/PBS film, "Hot Summer Winds," directed by Emiko Omori.
